Avoid generating extra subre tree nodes for capturing parentheses.

Previously, each pair of capturing parentheses gave rise to a separate
subre tree node, whose only function was to identify that we ought to
capture the match details for this particular sub-expression.  In
most cases we don't really need that, since we can perfectly well
put a "capture this" annotation on the child node that does the real
matching work.  As with the two preceding commits, the main value
of this is to avoid generating and optimizing an NFA for a tree node
that's not really pulling its weight.

The chosen data representation only allows one capture annotation
per subre node.  In the legal-per-spec, but seemingly not very useful,
case where there are multiple capturing parens around the exact same
bit of the regex (i.e. "((xyz))"), wrap the child node in N-1 capture
nodes that act the same as before.  We could work harder at that but
I'll refrain, pending some evidence that such cases are worth troubling
over.

In passing, improve the comments in regex.h to say what all the
different re_info bits mean.  Some of them were pretty obvious
but others not so much, so reverse-engineer some documentation.

This is part of a patch series that in total reduces the regex engine's
runtime by about a factor of four on a large corpus of real-world regexes.

Patch by me, reviewed by Joel Jacobson

Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/1340281.1613018383@sss.pgh.pa.us

1 files changed, 39 insertions, 15 deletions

diff --git a/src/backend/regex/regcomp.c b/src/backend/regex/regcomp.c
index c0680b280bc..0cd4b4c4c29 100644
--- a/src/backend/regex/regcomp.c
+++ b/src/backend/regex/regcomp.c
@@ -452,7 +452,7 @@ pg_regcomp(regex_t *re,
 #endif
 
 		/* Prepend .* to pattern if it's a lookbehind LACON */
-		nfanode(v, lasub, !LATYPE_IS_AHEAD(lasub->subno), debug);
+		nfanode(v, lasub, !LATYPE_IS_AHEAD(lasub->latype), debug);
 	}
 	CNOERR();
 	if (v->tree->flags & SHORTER)
@@ -944,7 +944,13 @@ parseqatom(struct vars *v,
 			else
 				atomtype = PLAIN;	/* something that's not '(' */
 			NEXT();
-			/* need new endpoints because tree will contain pointers */
+
+			/*
+			 * Make separate endpoints to ensure we keep this sub-NFA cleanly
+			 * separate from what surrounds it.  We need to be sure that when
+			 * we duplicate the sub-NFA for a backref, we get the right states
+			 * and no others.
+			 */
 			s = newstate(v->nfa);
 			s2 = newstate(v->nfa);
 			NOERR();
@@ -959,11 +965,21 @@ parseqatom(struct vars *v,
 			{
 				assert(v->subs[subno] == NULL);
 				v->subs[subno] = atom;
-				t = subre(v, '(', atom->flags | CAP, lp, rp);
-				NOERR();
-				t->subno = subno;
-				t->child = atom;
-				atom = t;
+				if (atom->capno == 0)
+				{
+					/* normal case: just mark the atom as capturing */
+					atom->flags |= CAP;
+					atom->capno = subno;
+				}
+				else
+				{
+					/* generate no-op wrapper node to handle "((x))" */
+					t = subre(v, '(', atom->flags | CAP, lp, rp);
+					NOERR();
+					t->capno = subno;
+					t->child = atom;
+					atom = t;
+				}
 			}
 			/* postpone everything else pending possible {0} */
 			break;
@@ -976,7 +992,7 @@ parseqatom(struct vars *v,
 			atom = subre(v, 'b', BACKR, lp, rp);
 			NOERR();
 			subno = v->nextvalue;
-			atom->subno = subno;
+			atom->backno = subno;
 			EMPTYARC(lp, rp);	/* temporarily, so there's something */
 			NEXT();
 			break;
@@ -1276,8 +1292,10 @@ parseqatom(struct vars *v,
 			freesubre(v, top->child);
 			top->op = t->op;
 			top->flags = t->flags;
+			top->latype = t->latype;
 			top->id = t->id;
-			top->subno = t->subno;
+			top->capno = t->capno;
+			top->backno = t->backno;
 			top->min = t->min;
 			top->max = t->max;
 			top->child = t->child;
@@ -1790,8 +1808,10 @@ subre(struct vars *v,
 
 	ret->op = op;
 	ret->flags = flags;
+	ret->latype = (char) -1;
 	ret->id = 0;				/* will be assigned later */
-	ret->subno = 0;
+	ret->capno = 0;
+	ret->backno = 0;
 	ret->min = ret->max = 1;
 	ret->child = NULL;
 	ret->sibling = NULL;
@@ -1893,7 +1913,7 @@ numst(struct subre *t,
 	assert(t != NULL);
 
 	i = start;
-	t->id = (short) i++;
+	t->id = i++;
 	for (t2 = t->child; t2 != NULL; t2 = t2->sibling)
 		i = numst(t2, i);
 	return i;
@@ -2040,7 +2060,7 @@ newlacon(struct vars *v,
 	sub = &v->lacons[n];
 	sub->begin = begin;
 	sub->end = end;
-	sub->subno = latype;
+	sub->latype = latype;
 	ZAPCNFA(sub->cnfa);
 	return n;
 }
@@ -2163,7 +2183,7 @@ dump(regex_t *re,
 		struct subre *lasub = &g->lacons[i];
 		const char *latype;
 
-		switch (lasub->subno)
+		switch (lasub->latype)
 		{
 			case LATYPE_AHEAD_POS:
 				latype = "positive lookahead";
@@ -2227,8 +2247,12 @@ stdump(struct subre *t,
 		fprintf(f, " hasbackref");
 	if (!(t->flags & INUSE))
 		fprintf(f, " UNUSED");
-	if (t->subno != 0)
-		fprintf(f, " (#%d)", t->subno);
+	if (t->latype != (char) -1)
+		fprintf(f, " latype(%d)", t->latype);
+	if (t->capno != 0)
+		fprintf(f, " capture(%d)", t->capno);
+	if (t->backno != 0)
+		fprintf(f, " backref(%d)", t->backno);
 	if (t->min != 1 || t->max != 1)
 	{
 		fprintf(f, " {%d,", t->min);