bytes: add Buffer.Available and Buffer.AvailableBuffer

This adds a new Buffer.AvailableBuffer method that returns
an empty buffer with a possibly non-empty capacity for use
with append-like APIs.

The typical usage pattern is something like:

	b := bb.AvailableBuffer()
	b = appendValue(b, v)
	bb.Write(b)

It allows logic combining append-like APIs with Buffer
to avoid needing to allocate and manage buffers themselves and
allows the append-like APIs to directly write into the Buffer.

The Buffer.Write method uses the builtin copy function,
which avoids copying bytes if the source and destination are identical.
Thus, Buffer.Write is a constant-time call for this pattern.

Performance:

	BenchmarkBufferAppendNoCopy  2.909 ns/op  5766942167.24 MB/s

This benchmark should only be testing the cost of bookkeeping
and never the copying of the input slice.
Thus, the MB/s should be orders of magnitude faster than RAM.

Fixes #53685

Change-Id: I0b41e54361339df309db8d03527689b123f99085
Reviewed-on: https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/474635
Run-TryBot: Joseph Tsai <joetsai@digital-static.net>
Reviewed-by: Daniel Martí <mvdan@mvdan.cc>
Reviewed-by: Cherry Mui <cherryyz@google.com>
TryBot-Result: Gopher Robot <gobot@golang.org>
Auto-Submit: Joseph Tsai <joetsai@digital-static.net>
Reviewed-by: Ian Lance Taylor <iant@google.com>

Author: dsnet

api/next/53685.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+pkg bytes, method (*Buffer) Available() int #53685
+pkg bytes, method (*Buffer) AvailableBuffer() []uint8 #53685

src/bytes/buffer.go

@@ -53,6 +53,12 @@ const maxInt = int(^uint(0) >> 1)
 // so immediate changes to the slice will affect the result of future reads.
 func (b *Buffer) Bytes() []byte { return b.buf[b.off:] }
 
+// AvailableBuffer returns an empty buffer with b.Available() capacity.
+// This buffer is intended to be appended to and
+// passed to an immediately succeeding Write call.
+// The buffer is only valid until the next write operation on b.
+func (b *Buffer) AvailableBuffer() []byte { return b.buf[len(b.buf):] }
+
 // String returns the contents of the unread portion of the buffer
 // as a string. If the Buffer is a nil pointer, it returns "<nil>".
 //
@@ -76,6 +82,9 @@ func (b *Buffer) Len() int { return len(b.buf) - b.off }
 // total space allocated for the buffer's data.
 func (b *Buffer) Cap() int { return cap(b.buf) }
 
+// Available returns how many bytes are unused in the buffer.
+func (b *Buffer) Available() int { return cap(b.buf) - len(b.buf) }
+
 // Truncate discards all but the first n unread bytes from the buffer
 // but continues to use the same allocated storage.
 // It panics if n is negative or greater than the length of the buffer.

src/bytes/buffer_test.go

@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ import (
 	"fmt"
 	"io"
 	"math/rand"
+	"strconv"
 	"testing"
 	"unicode/utf8"
 )
@@ -326,6 +327,33 @@ func TestWriteTo(t *testing.T) {
 	}
 }
 
+func TestWriteAppend(t *testing.T) {
+	var got Buffer
+	var want []byte
+	for i := 0; i < 1000; i++ {
+		b := got.AvailableBuffer()
+		b = strconv.AppendInt(b, int64(i), 10)
+		want = strconv.AppendInt(want, int64(i), 10)
+		got.Write(b)
+	}
+	if !Equal(got.Bytes(), want) {
+		t.Fatalf("Bytes() = %q, want %q", got, want)
+	}
+
+	// With a sufficiently sized buffer, there should be no allocations.
+	n := testing.AllocsPerRun(100, func() {
+		got.Reset()
+		for i := 0; i < 1000; i++ {
+			b := got.AvailableBuffer()
+			b = strconv.AppendInt(b, int64(i), 10)
+			got.Write(b)
+		}
+	})
+	if n > 0 {
+		t.Errorf("allocations occurred while appending")
+	}
+}
+
 func TestRuneIO(t *testing.T) {
 	const NRune = 1000
 	// Built a test slice while we write the data
@@ -687,3 +715,16 @@ func BenchmarkBufferWriteBlock(b *testing.B) {
 		})
 	}
 }
+
+func BenchmarkBufferAppendNoCopy(b *testing.B) {
+	var bb Buffer
+	bb.Grow(16 << 20)
+	b.SetBytes(int64(bb.Available()))
+	b.ReportAllocs()
+	for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
+		bb.Reset()
+		b := bb.AvailableBuffer()
+		b = b[:cap(b)] // use max capacity to simulate a large append operation
+		bb.Write(b)    // should be nearly infinitely fast
+	}
+}

src/bytes/example_test.go

@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ import (
 	"io"
 	"os"
 	"sort"
+	"strconv"
 	"unicode"
 )
 
@@ -37,6 +38,18 @@ func ExampleBuffer_Bytes() {
 	// Output: hello world
 }
 
+func ExampleBuffer_AvailableBuffer() {
+	var buf bytes.Buffer
+	for i := 0; i < 4; i++ {
+		b := buf.AvailableBuffer()
+		b = strconv.AppendInt(b, int64(i), 10)
+		b = append(b, ' ')
+		buf.Write(b)
+	}
+	os.Stdout.Write(buf.Bytes())
+	// Output: 0 1 2 3
+}
+
 func ExampleBuffer_Cap() {
 	buf1 := bytes.NewBuffer(make([]byte, 10))
 	buf2 := bytes.NewBuffer(make([]byte, 0, 10))