Reading a file into an empty vector or string buffer can incur
unnecessary `read` syscalls and memory re-allocations as the buffer
"warms up" and grows to its final size. This is perhaps a necessary evil
with generic readers, but files can be read in smarter by checking the
file size and reserving that much capacity.
`std::fs::read` and `read_to_string` already perform this optimization:
they open the file, reads its metadata, and call `with_capacity` with
the file size. This ensures that the buffer does not need to be resized
and an initial string of small `read` syscalls.
However, if a user opens the `File` themselves and calls
`file.read_to_end` or `file.read_to_string` they do not get this
optimization.
```rust
let mut buf = Vec::new();
file.read_to_end(&mut buf)?;
```
I searched through this project's codebase and even here are a *lot* of
examples of this. They're found all over in unit tests, which isn't a
big deal, but there are also several real instances in the compiler and
in Cargo. I've documented the ones I found in a comment here:
https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/89516#issuecomment-934423999
Most telling, the `Read` trait and the `read_to_end` method both show
this exact pattern as examples of how to use readers. What this says to
me is that this shouldn't be solved by simply fixing the instances of it
in this codebase. If it's here it's certain to be prevalent in the wider
Rust ecosystem.
To that end, this commit adds specializations of `read_to_end` and
`read_to_string` directly on `File`. This way it's no longer a minor
footgun to start with an empty buffer when reading a file in.
A nice side effect of this change is that code that accesses a `File` as
a bare `Read` constraint or via a `dyn Read` trait object will benefit.
For example, this code from `compiler/rustc_serialize/src/json.rs`:
```rust
pub fn from_reader(rdr: &mut dyn Read) -> Result<Json, BuilderError> {
let mut contents = Vec::new();
match rdr.read_to_end(&mut contents) {
```
Related changes:
- I also added specializations to `BufReader` to delegate to
`self.inner`'s methods. That way it can call `File`'s optimized
implementations if the inner reader is a file.
- The private `std::io::append_to_string` function is now marked
`unsafe`.
- `File::read_to_string` being more efficient means that the performance
note for `io::read_to_string` can be softened. I've added @camelid's
suggested wording from:
https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/80218#issuecomment-936806502
If you know how much data to expect and use `Vec::with_capacity` to
pre-allocate a buffer of that capacity, `Read::read_to_end` will still
double its capacity. It needs some space to perform a read, even though
that read ends up returning `0`.
It's a bummer to carefully pre-allocate 1GB to read a 1GB file into
memory and end up using 2GB.
This fixes that behavior by special casing a full buffer and reading
into a small "probe" buffer instead. If that read returns `0` then it's
confirmed that the buffer was the perfect size. If it doesn't, the probe
buffer is appended to the normal buffer and the read loop continues.
Fixing this allows several workarounds in the standard library to be
removed:
- `Take` no longer needs to override `Read::read_to_end`.
- The `reservation_size` callback that allowed `Take` to inhibit the
previous over-allocation behavior isn't needed.
- `fs::read` doesn't need to reserve an extra byte in
`initial_buffer_size`.
Curiously, there was a unit test that specifically checked that
`Read::read_to_end` *does* over-allocate. I removed that test, too.
Add has_data_left() to BufRead
This is a continuation of #40747 and also addresses #40745. The problem with the previous PR was that it had "eof" in its method name. This PR uses a more descriptive method name, but I'm open to changing it.
Specialize `io::Bytes::size_hint` for more types
Improve the result of `<io::Bytes as Iterator>::size_hint` for some readers. I did not manage to specialize `SizeHint` for `io::Cursor`
Side question: would it be interesting for `io::Read` to have an optional `size_hint` method ?
To make way for a new IoSlice(Mut)::advance function that advances a
single slice.
Also changes the signature to accept a `&mut &mut [IoSlice]`, not
returning anything. This will better match the future IoSlice::advance
function.
