bytecodealliance / bytecodealliance/cap-std

`create_dir_all` performs a quadradic number of system calls

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#51 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
good first issue
Dominant language
Rust
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Forks
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Avg merge
1h 16m
Merged PRs (30d)
4

Description

`create_dir_all` uses the algorithm from `libstd` for recursively creating all components. However, `cap-primitives`' `mkdir` function performs a system call per path component per call, so calling it once per path component leads to a quadratic number of system calls.

We should add a `create_dir_all` function in `cap-primitives` which, for each path component, creates a directory for that component (ignoring a `io::ErrorKind::AlreadyExists` error), opens the newly created directory, and then uses the resulting handle as the base for handling the next component.

Similar to `open_manually`, it should handle `..` components by keeping a stack of handles as it goes, so that it can simply pop an entry from that stack to ascend to the parent.

And then, the `cap-std` and `cap-async-std` `create_dir_all` routines can use it.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reading the existing cap-primitives mkdir and open_manually implementations, then inspect the cap-std and cap-async-std create_dir_all routines that should use the new primitive. The work is complete when component creation uses directory handles, handles AlreadyExists and .. with a handle stack, and the higher-level routines delegate to it.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
operating-systems, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
38/100

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