Pinnableslice examples and blog post

Summary: Closes facebook#2788

Differential Revision: D5700189

Pulled By: maysamyabandeh

fbshipit-source-id: 6f043e652093ff904e52f6d35190855781b87673

docs/_posts/2017-05-12-partitioned-index-filter.markdown

@@ -31,4 +31,4 @@ In this example we have a DB of size 86G on HDD and emulate the small memory tha
 
 In this example we have a DB of size 300G on SSD and emulate the small memory that would be available in presence of other DBs on the same node by by using direct IO (skipping OS file cache) and block cache of size 6G and 2G. Without partitioning the linkbench throughput drops from 38k tps to 23k when reducing block cache size from 6G to 2G. With partitioning the throughput drops from 38k to only 30k.
 
-Learn more (here)[https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/wiki/Partitioned-Index-Filters].
+Learn more [here](https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/wiki/Partitioned-Index-Filters).

docs/_posts/2017-08-24-pinnableslice.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+---
+title: PinnableSlice: less memcpy with point lookups
+layout: post
+author: maysamyabandeh
+category: blog
+---
+
+The classic API for [DB::Get](https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/blob/9e583711144f580390ce21a49a8ceacca338fcd5/include/rocksdb/db.h#L310) receives a std::string as argument to which it will copy the value. The memcpy overhead could be non-trivial when the value is large. The [new API](https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/blob/9e583711144f580390ce21a49a8ceacca338fcd5/include/rocksdb/db.h#L322) receives a PinnableSlice instead, which avoids memcpy in most of the cases.
+
+### What is PinnableSlice?
+
+Similarly to Slice, PinnableSlice refers to some in-memory data so it does not incur the memcpy cost. To ensure that the data will not be erased while it is being processed by the user, PinnableSlice, as its name suggests, has the data pinned in memory. The pinned data are released when PinnableSlice object is destructed or when ::Reset is invoked explicitly on it.
+
+### How good it is?
+
+Here are the improvements in throughput for an [in-memory benchmark](https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/1756#issuecomment-286201693):
+* value 1k byte: 14%
+* value 10k byte: 34%
+
+### Any limitations?
+
+PinnableSlice tries to avoid memcpy as much as possible. The primary gain is when reading large values from the block cache. There are however cases that it would still have to copy the data into its internal buffer. The reason is mainly the complexity of implementation and if there is enough motivation on the application side. the scope of PinnableSlice could be extended to such cases too. These include:
+* Merged values
+* Reads from memtables
+
+### How to use it?
+
+```cpp
+PinnableSlice pinnable_val;
+while (!stopped) { 
+   auto s = db->Get(opt, cf, key, &pinnable_val);
+   // ... use it
+   pinnable_val.Reset(); // then release it immediately
+}
+```
+
+You can also [initialize the internal buffer](https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/blob/9e583711144f580390ce21a49a8ceacca338fcd5/include/rocksdb/db.h#L314) of PinnableSlice by passing your own string in the constructor. [simple_example.cc](https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/blob/master/examples/simple_example.cc) demonstrates that with more examples.

examples/simple_example.cc

@@ -50,6 +50,33 @@ int main() {
   db->Get(ReadOptions(), "key2", &value);
   assert(value == "value");
 
+  {
+    PinnableSlice pinnable_val;
+    db->Get(ReadOptions(), db->DefaultColumnFamily(), "key2", &pinnable_val);
+    assert(pinnable_val == "value");
+  }
+
+  {
+    std::string string_val;
+    // If it cannot pin the value, it copies the value to its internal buffer.
+    // The intenral buffer could be set during construction.
+    PinnableSlice pinnable_val(&string_val);
+    db->Get(ReadOptions(), db->DefaultColumnFamily(), "key2", &pinnable_val);
+    assert(pinnable_val == "value");
+    // If the value is not pinned, the internal buffer must have the value.
+    assert(pinnable_val.IsPinned() || string_val == "value");
+  }
+
+  PinnableSlice pinnable_val;
+  db->Get(ReadOptions(), db->DefaultColumnFamily(), "key1", &pinnable_val);
+  assert(s.IsNotFound());
+  // Reset PinnableSlice after each use and before each reuse
+  pinnable_val.Reset();
+  db->Get(ReadOptions(), db->DefaultColumnFamily(), "key2", &pinnable_val);
+  assert(pinnable_val == "value");
+  pinnable_val.Reset();
+  // The Slice pointed by pinnable_val is not valid after this point
+
   delete db;
 
   return 0;