richiemccoll / understanding-pointer-compression-nodejs

Understanding Pointer Compression in Node.js

This repo contains:

• a simple server that handles large payloads
• a script that uses autocannon to load test the server.
• a Dockerfile that does the following:
  • clone the Node.js repository
  • configure the pointer compression flag
  • build the node binary

Three routes are exposed:

• one for processing large payloads
• one for generating large payloads
• one for retrieving v8 heap statistics

Requirements

• Node.js

Scripts

• npm start to start the server
• npm run bench to start autocannon

API Routes

POST /large-payload

Request:

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"data": "your_large_payload_here"}' http://localhost:3000/large-payload

Response:

{
  "message": "Payload processed successfully"
}

GET /generate-large-payload?size={size}

This route generates a large payload filled with 'A's and returns it as a base64-encoded string. The size of the generated payload can be specified using the size query parameter (in bytes).

Request:

curl http://localhost:3000/generate-large-payload?size=1024

Response:

{
  "message": "Generated a large payload of size 1024 bytes",
  "payload": "QUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQU"
}

GET /stats

This route calls v8.getHeapStatistics() and returns the response.

Request:

curl http://localhost:3000/stats

Response:

{
  "total_heap_size": 52191232,
  "total_heap_size_executable": 786432,
  "total_physical_size": 45961216,
  "total_available_size": 4322552968,
  "used_heap_size": 21825888,
  "heap_size_limit": 4345298944,
  "malloced_memory": 139368,
  "peak_malloced_memory": 2957344,
  "does_zap_garbage": 0,
  "number_of_native_contexts": 1,
  "number_of_detached_contexts": 0,
  "total_global_handles_size": 8192,
  "used_global_handles_size": 3424,
  "external_memory": 1172400
}