[gcc r12-5875] libstdc++: Do not leak empty COW strings

[Jonathan Wakely]

https://gcc.gnu.org/g:fb9875ebf10c86be21824cb836b7b3b80f3a731b

commit r12-5875-gfb9875ebf10c86be21824cb836b7b3b80f3a731b
Author: Jonathan Wakely <jwakely@redhat.com>
Date:   Thu Dec 2 15:50:17 2021 +0000

    libstdc++: Do not leak empty COW strings
    
    When non-const references, pointers or iterators are obtained to the
    contents of a COW std::basic_string, the implementation has to assume it
    could result in a write to the contents. If the string was previously
    shared, it does the "copy-on-write" step of creating a new copy of the
    data that is not shared by another object.  It also marks the string as
    "leaked", so that no future copies of it will share ownership either.
    
    However, if the string is empty then the only character in the sequence
    is the terminating null, and modifying that is undefined behaviour. This
    means that non-const references/pointers/iterators to an empty string
    are effectively const. Since no direct modification is possible, there
    is no need to "leak" the string, it can be safely shared with other
    objects. This avoids unnecessary allocations to create new copies of
    empty strings that can't be modified anyway.
    
    We already did this optimization for strings that share ownership of the
    static _S_empty_rep() object, but not for strings that have non-zero
    capacity, and not for fully-dynamic-strings (where the _S_empty_rep()
    object is never used).
    
    With this change we avoid two allocations in the return statement:
    
      std::string s;
      s.reserve(1);       // allocate
      std::string s2 = s;
      std::string s3 = s;
      return s[0] + s2[0] + s3[0]; // leak+allocate twice
    
    libstdc++-v3/ChangeLog:
    
            * include/bits/cow_string.h (basic_string::_M_leak_hard): Do not
            reallocate an empty string.

Diff:
---
 libstdc++-v3/include/bits/cow_string.h | 9 ++++++---
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/libstdc++-v3/include/bits/cow_string.h b/libstdc++-v3/include/bits/cow_string.h
index 389b39583e4..b21a7422246 100644
--- a/libstdc++-v3/include/bits/cow_string.h
+++ b/libstdc++-v3/include/bits/cow_string.h
@@ -3366,10 +3366,13 @@ _GLIBCXX_BEGIN_NAMESPACE_VERSION
     basic_string<_CharT, _Traits, _Alloc>::
     _M_leak_hard()
     {
-#if _GLIBCXX_FULLY_DYNAMIC_STRING == 0
-      if (_M_rep() == &_S_empty_rep())
+      // No need to create a new copy of an empty string when a non-const
+      // reference/pointer/iterator into it is obtained. Modifying the
+      // trailing null character is undefined, so the ref/pointer/iterator
+      // is effectively const anyway.
+      if (this->empty())
 	return;
-#endif
+
       if (_M_rep()->_M_is_shared())
 	_M_mutate(0, 0, 0);
       _M_rep()->_M_set_leaked();