The code generated for x = append(x, v) is roughly:
t := x
if len(t)+1 > cap(t) {
t = grow(t)
}
t[len(t)] = v
len(t)++
x = t
We used to generate this code as Go pseudocode during walk.
Generate it instead as actual instructions during gen.
Doing so lets us apply a few optimizations. The most important
is that when, as in the above example, the source slice and the
destination slice are the same, the code can instead do:
t := x
if len(t)+1 > cap(t) {
t = grow(t)
x = {base(t), len(t)+1, cap(t)}
} else {
len(x)++
}
t[len(t)] = v
That is, in the fast path that does not reallocate the array,
only the updated length needs to be written back to x,
not the array pointer and not the capacity. This is more like
what you'd write by hand in C. It's faster in general, since
the fast path elides two of the three stores, but it's especially
faster when the form of x is such that the base pointer write
would turn into a write barrier. No write, no barrier.
See next CL for combination with a similar optimization for slice.
The benchmarks that are slower in this CL are still faster overall
with the combination of the two.
Change-Id: I2a7421658091b2488c64741b4db15ab6c3b4cb7e
Reviewed-on: https://go-review.googlesource.com/9812 Reviewed-by: David Chase <drchase@google.com>