LFU: do some changes about LFU to find hotkeys

Firstly, use access time to replace the decreas time of LFU.
For function LFUDecrAndReturn,
it should only try to get decremented counter,
not update LFU fields, we will update it in an explicit way.
And we will times halve the counter according to the times of
elapsed time than server.lfu_decay_time.
Everytime a key is accessed, we should update the LFU
including update access time, and increment the counter after
call function LFUDecrAndReturn.
If a key is overwritten, the LFU should be also updated.
Then we can use `OBJECT freq` command to get a key's frequence,
and LFUDecrAndReturn should be called in `OBJECT freq` command
in case of the key has not been accessed for a long time,
because we update the access time only when the key is read or
overwritten.

src/db.c

@@ -38,6 +38,15 @@
  * C-level DB API
  *----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
 
+/* Update LFU when an object is accessed.
+ * Firstly, decrement the counter if the decrement time is reached.
+ * Then logarithmically increment the counter, and update the access time. */
+void updateLFU(robj *val) {
+    unsigned long counter = LFUDecrAndReturn(val);
+    counter = LFULogIncr(counter);
+    val->lru = (LFUGetTimeInMinutes()<<8) | counter;
+}
+
 /* Low level key lookup API, not actually called directly from commands
  * implementations that should instead rely on lookupKeyRead(),
  * lookupKeyWrite() and lookupKeyReadWithFlags(). */
@@ -54,9 +63,7 @@ robj *lookupKey(redisDb *db, robj *key, int flags) {
             !(flags & LOOKUP_NOTOUCH))
         {
             if (server.maxmemory_policy & MAXMEMORY_FLAG_LFU) {
-                unsigned long ldt = val->lru >> 8;
-                unsigned long counter = LFULogIncr(val->lru & 255);
-                val->lru = (ldt << 8) | counter;
+                updateLFU(val);
             } else {
                 val->lru = LRU_CLOCK();
             }
@@ -180,6 +187,9 @@ void dbOverwrite(redisDb *db, robj *key, robj *val) {
         int saved_lru = old->lru;
         dictReplace(db->dict, key->ptr, val);
         val->lru = saved_lru;
+        /* LFU should be not only copied but also updated
+         * when a key is overwritten. */
+        updateLFU(val);
     } else {
         dictReplace(db->dict, key->ptr, val);
     }

src/evict.c

@@ -60,8 +60,6 @@ struct evictionPoolEntry {
 
 static struct evictionPoolEntry *EvictionPoolLRU;
 
-unsigned long LFUDecrAndReturn(robj *o);
-
 /* ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  * Implementation of eviction, aging and LRU
  * --------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
@@ -302,8 +300,8 @@ unsigned long LFUGetTimeInMinutes(void) {
     return (server.unixtime/60) & 65535;
 }
 
-/* Given an object last decrement time, compute the minimum number of minutes
- * that elapsed since the last decrement. Handle overflow (ldt greater than
+/* Given an object last access time, compute the minimum number of minutes
+ * that elapsed since the last access. Handle overflow (ldt greater than
  * the current 16 bits minutes time) considering the time as wrapping
  * exactly once. */
 unsigned long LFUTimeElapsed(unsigned long ldt) {
@@ -324,24 +322,31 @@ uint8_t LFULogIncr(uint8_t counter) {
     return counter;
 }
 
-/* If the object decrement time is reached, decrement the LFU counter and
- * update the decrement time field. Return the object frequency counter.
+/* If the object decrement time is reached decrement the LFU counter but
+ * do not update LFU fields of the object, we update the access time
+ * and counter in an explicit way when the object is really accessed.
+ * And we will times halve the counter according to the times of
+ * elapsed time than server.lfu_decay_time.
+ * Return the object frequency counter.
  *
  * This function is used in order to scan the dataset for the best object
  * to fit: as we check for the candidate, we incrementally decrement the
  * counter of the scanned objects if needed. */
-#define LFU_DECR_INTERVAL 1
 unsigned long LFUDecrAndReturn(robj *o) {
     unsigned long ldt = o->lru >> 8;
     unsigned long counter = o->lru & 255;
-    if (LFUTimeElapsed(ldt) >= (unsigned long)server.lfu_decay_time && counter) {
-        if (counter > LFU_INIT_VAL*2) {
-            counter /= 2;
-            if (counter < LFU_INIT_VAL*2) counter = LFU_INIT_VAL*2;
+    long halve_times = server.lfu_decay_time ? LFUTimeElapsed(ldt) / server.lfu_decay_time : 0;
+    if (halve_times > 0 && counter) {
+        if (halve_times == 1) {
+            if (counter > LFU_INIT_VAL*2) {
+                counter /= 2;
+                if (counter < LFU_INIT_VAL*2) counter = LFU_INIT_VAL*2;
+            } else {
+                counter--;
+            }
         } else {
-            counter--;
+            counter = counter >> halve_times;
         }
-        o->lru = (LFUGetTimeInMinutes()<<8) | counter;
     }
     return counter;
 }

src/object.c

@@ -1050,10 +1050,14 @@ void objectCommand(client *c) {
         if ((o = objectCommandLookupOrReply(c,c->argv[2],shared.nullbulk))
                 == NULL) return;
         if (!(server.maxmemory_policy & MAXMEMORY_FLAG_LFU)) {
-            addReplyError(c,"A non-LFU maxmemory policy is selected, access frequency not tracked. Please note that when switching between policies at runtime LRU and LFU data will take some time to adjust.");
+            addReplyError(c,"An LFU maxmemory policy is not selected, access frequency not tracked. Please note that when switching between policies at runtime LRU and LFU data will take some time to adjust.");
             return;
         }
-        addReplyLongLong(c,o->lru&255);
+        /* LFUDecrAndReturn should be called
+         * in case of the key has not been accessed for a long time,
+         * because we update the access time only
+         * when the key is read or overwritten. */
+        addReplyLongLong(c,LFUDecrAndReturn(o));
     } else {
         addReplyErrorFormat(c, "Unknown subcommand or wrong number of arguments for '%s'. Try OBJECT help",
             (char *)c->argv[1]->ptr);

src/server.h

@@ -586,7 +586,7 @@ typedef struct redisObject {
     unsigned encoding:4;
     unsigned lru:LRU_BITS; /* LRU time (relative to global lru_clock) or
                             * LFU data (least significant 8 bits frequency
-                            * and most significant 16 bits decreas time). */
+                            * and most significant 16 bits access time). */
     int refcount;
     void *ptr;
 } robj;
@@ -1802,6 +1802,7 @@ void evictionPoolAlloc(void);
 #define LFU_INIT_VAL 5
 unsigned long LFUGetTimeInMinutes(void);
 uint8_t LFULogIncr(uint8_t value);
+unsigned long LFUDecrAndReturn(robj *o);
 
 /* Keys hashing / comparison functions for dict.c hash tables. */
 uint64_t dictSdsHash(const void *key);