fs: improve promise based readFile performance for big files

This significantly reduces the peak memory for the promise
based readFile operation by reusing a single memory chunk after
each read and strinigifying that chunk immediately.

Signed-off-by: Ruben Bridgewater <ruben@bridgewater.de>
PR-URL: #44295
Reviewed-By: Matteo Collina <matteo.collina@gmail.com>
Reviewed-By: James M Snell <jasnell@gmail.com>

benchmark/fs/readfile-promises.js

@@ -16,7 +16,14 @@ const filename = path.resolve(tmpdir.path,
 const bench = common.createBenchmark(main, {
   duration: [5],
   encoding: ['', 'utf-8'],
-  len: [1024, 16 * 1024 * 1024],
+  len: [
+    1024,
+    512 * 1024,
+    4 * 1024 ** 2,
+    8 * 1024 ** 2,
+    16 * 1024 ** 2,
+    32 * 1024 ** 2,
+  ],
   concurrent: [1, 10]
 });
 

lib/fs.js

@@ -331,6 +331,9 @@ function readFileAfterStat(err, stats) {
   if (err)
     return context.close(err);
 
+  // TODO(BridgeAR): Check if allocating a smaller chunk is better performance
+  // wise, similar to the promise based version (less peak memory and chunked
+  // stringify operations vs multiple C++/JS boundary crossings).
   const size = context.size = isFileType(stats, S_IFREG) ? stats[8] : 0;
 
   if (size > kIoMaxLength) {
@@ -340,6 +343,8 @@ function readFileAfterStat(err, stats) {
 
   try {
     if (size === 0) {
+      // TODO(BridgeAR): If an encoding is set, use the StringDecoder to concat
+      // the result and reuse the buffer instead of allocating a new one.
       context.buffers = [];
     } else {
       context.buffer = Buffer.allocUnsafeSlow(size);

lib/internal/fs/promises.js

@@ -87,6 +87,7 @@ const {
   promisify,
 } = require('internal/util');
 const { EventEmitterMixin } = require('internal/event_target');
+const { StringDecoder } = require('string_decoder');
 const { watch } = require('internal/fs/watchers');
 const { isIterable } = require('internal/streams/utils');
 const assert = require('internal/assert');
@@ -419,63 +420,83 @@ async function writeFileHandle(filehandle, data, signal, encoding) {
 
 async function readFileHandle(filehandle, options) {
   const signal = options?.signal;
+  const encoding = options?.encoding;
+  const decoder = encoding && new StringDecoder(encoding);
 
   checkAborted(signal);
 
   const statFields = await binding.fstat(filehandle.fd, false, kUsePromises);
 
   checkAborted(signal);
 
-  let size;
+  let size = 0;
+  let length = 0;
   if ((statFields[1/* mode */] & S_IFMT) === S_IFREG) {
     size = statFields[8/* size */];
-  } else {
-    size = 0;
+    length = encoding ? MathMin(size, kReadFileBufferLength) : size;
+  }
+  if (length === 0) {
+    length = kReadFileUnknownBufferLength;
   }
 
   if (size > kIoMaxLength)
     throw new ERR_FS_FILE_TOO_LARGE(size);
 
-  let endOfFile = false;
   let totalRead = 0;
-  const noSize = size === 0;
-  const buffers = [];
-  const fullBuffer = noSize ? undefined : Buffer.allocUnsafeSlow(size);
-  do {
+  let buffer = Buffer.allocUnsafeSlow(length);
+  let result = '';
+  let offset = 0;
+  let buffers;
+  const chunkedRead = length > kReadFileBufferLength;
+
+  while (true) {
     checkAborted(signal);
-    let buffer;
-    let offset;
-    let length;
-    if (noSize) {
-      buffer = Buffer.allocUnsafeSlow(kReadFileUnknownBufferLength);
-      offset = 0;
-      length = kReadFileUnknownBufferLength;
-    } else {
-      buffer = fullBuffer;
-      offset = totalRead;
+
+    if (chunkedRead) {
       length = MathMin(size - totalRead, kReadFileBufferLength);
     }
 
     const bytesRead = (await binding.read(filehandle.fd, buffer, offset,
-                                          length, -1, kUsePromises)) || 0;
+                                          length, -1, kUsePromises)) ?? 0;
     totalRead += bytesRead;
-    endOfFile = bytesRead === 0 || totalRead === size;
-    if (noSize && bytesRead > 0) {
-      const isBufferFull = bytesRead === kReadFileUnknownBufferLength;
-      const chunkBuffer = isBufferFull ? buffer : buffer.slice(0, bytesRead);
-      ArrayPrototypePush(buffers, chunkBuffer);
+
+    if (bytesRead === 0 ||
+        totalRead === size ||
+        (bytesRead !== buffer.length && !chunkedRead)) {
+      const singleRead = bytesRead === totalRead;
+
+      const bytesToCheck = chunkedRead ? totalRead : bytesRead;
+
+      if (bytesToCheck !== buffer.length) {
+        buffer = buffer.subarray(0, bytesToCheck);
+      }
+
+      if (!encoding) {
+        if (size === 0 && !singleRead) {
+          ArrayPrototypePush(buffers, buffer);
+          return Buffer.concat(buffers, totalRead);
+        }
+        return buffer;
+      }
+
+      if (singleRead) {
+        return buffer.toString(encoding);
+      }
+      result += decoder.end(buffer);
+      return result;
     }
-  } while (!endOfFile);
 
-  let result;
-  if (size > 0) {
-    result = totalRead === size ? fullBuffer : fullBuffer.slice(0, totalRead);
-  } else {
-    result = buffers.length === 1 ? buffers[0] : Buffer.concat(buffers,
-                                                               totalRead);
+    if (encoding) {
+      result += decoder.write(buffer);
+    } else if (size !== 0) {
+      offset = totalRead;
+    } else {
+      buffers ??= [];
+      // Unknown file size requires chunks.
+      ArrayPrototypePush(buffers, buffer);
+      buffer = Buffer.allocUnsafeSlow(kReadFileUnknownBufferLength);
+    }
   }
-
-  return options.encoding ? result.toString(options.encoding) : result;
 }
 
 // All of the functions are defined as async in order to ensure that errors

test/parallel/test-fs-promises-readfile.js

@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+// Flags: --expose-internals
 'use strict';
 
 const common = require('../common');
@@ -6,15 +7,15 @@ const assert = require('assert');
 const path = require('path');
 const { writeFile, readFile } = require('fs').promises;
 const tmpdir = require('../common/tmpdir');
+const { internalBinding } = require('internal/test/binding');
+const fsBinding = internalBinding('fs');
 tmpdir.refresh();
 
 const fn = path.join(tmpdir.path, 'large-file');
 
 // Creating large buffer with random content
 const largeBuffer = Buffer.from(
-  Array.apply(null, { length: 16834 * 2 })
-    .map(Math.random)
-    .map((number) => (number * (1 << 8)))
+  Array.from({ length: 1024 ** 2 + 19 }, (_, index) => index)
 );
 
 async function createLargeFile() {
@@ -69,11 +70,22 @@ async function validateWrongSignalParam() {
 
 }
 
+async function validateZeroByteLiar() {
+  const originalFStat = fsBinding.fstat;
+  fsBinding.fstat = common.mustCall(
+    () => (/* stat fields */ [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 0 /* size */])
+  );
+  const readBuffer = await readFile(fn);
+  assert.strictEqual(readBuffer.toString(), largeBuffer.toString());
+  fsBinding.fstat = originalFStat;
+}
+
 (async () => {
   await createLargeFile();
   await validateReadFile();
   await validateReadFileProc();
   await validateReadFileAbortLogicBefore();
   await validateReadFileAbortLogicDuring();
   await validateWrongSignalParam();
+  await validateZeroByteLiar();
 })().then(common.mustCall());