Skip to content

FrameSorter.push overlap loop is O(n²) under heavy out-of-order reordering #24

@endel

Description

@endel

Context

Follow-up from PR #23 review (merged in 5d9c626).

FrameSorter.push in src/quic/stream.zig has a fast path for sequential appends (effective_offset >= highest_buffered), which covers the dominant bulk-receive case in O(1). When that fast path misses, it falls into a while (true) overlap-resolution loop whose inner body scans the full chunks map (keys()/values()) once per overlapping chunk handled.

Issue

For a receive stream with many small out-of-order chunks buffered simultaneously (pathological reordering or an adversarial sender fragmenting at shifting boundaries), each push can do O(n) scans and the loop can run O(n) times → O(n²) per push. The chunk map is bounded, so this is not unbounded, but it is a latent throughput cliff under heavy reordering.

Severity

Minor / latent. The common in-order path is unaffected (fast path). Only triggers under sustained out-of-order delivery with many coexisting gaps.

Possible directions

  • Maintain chunks in offset order (or an interval tree) so overlap resolution is a localized neighbor lookup instead of a full scan.
  • Cap the overlap loop work and fall back to a coarser merge when degenerate.

No action needed unless profiling under reordering shows it; filing so it is not lost.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    No labels
    No labels

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions