C API to create BigDecimal objects
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- Dominant language
- C
- Stars
- 152
- Forks
- 95
- Avg merge
- 4d 1h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 10
Description
BigDecimal is used by various database clients, as well as various serialization libraries. Many of those are implemented in C, and for them creating BigDecimal objects is an important bottleneck.
For example, here's the relevant code in the Trilogy MySQL client gem: https://github.com/trilogy-libraries/trilogy/blob/7fcfe8c1c79208c6c56439d1d29c7dc591442c53/contrib/ruby/ext/trilogy-ruby/cast.c#L236-L241
It needs to:
- Allocate a Ruby String and cpy the bytes into it.
- Use
rb_funcallto invokeBigDecimal().
The string allocation isn't too bad, but having to use method dispatch is quite costly.
It would be very useful if there was a set of C APIs to efficiently allocate BigDecimal objects:
VALUE BigDecimal_from_str(const char *, size_t len)`
Contributor guide
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First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start with the linked Trilogy contrib/ruby/ext/trilogy-ruby/cast.c conversion code at lines 236-241 and trace how it currently creates BigDecimal values. The requested API should accept a byte string and length; done means C clients can create BigDecimal objects without allocating an intermediate Ruby String or calling BigDecimal through rb_funcall.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- c, ruby
- Domain
- api
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 45/100