Claim Optimization

[westshgit]

Context

I have a Claim struct that may contain additional claims, defined as follows:

#[derive(Clone, PartialEq, Debug, Eq)]
#[cfg_attr(feature = "serde", derive(Serialize, Deserialize))]
pub struct Claim {
    r#type: Cow<'static, str>,
    value: String,
    issuer: Option<String>,
    label: Option<Cow<'static, str>>,
    additional_claims: Option<Vec<Claim>>,
}

Claims can be created like this:

```rust
let claim = Claim::from("email", String::from("auth-rs@example.com"));

This works well for me. Now, I have another struct called Claims, which is used to organize all claims, so we can quickly retrieve claims by a specific label. The current definition of Claimsis:

#[derive(Clone, PartialEq, Debug, Eq)]
#[cfg_attr(feature = "serde", derive(Serialize, Deserialize))]
pub struct Claims {
    // So we don't carry an empty map all around when not used
    claims: Option<HashMap<String, Vec<Claim>>>,
}

The claims can be grouped as follows:

let claims = vec![
    Claim::from("email", String::from("auth-rs@example.com")),
    Claim::from("name", String::from("auth-rs"))
];
let google_claim = Claims::new().insert("google", claims);

We will have different methods to help get different sets of claims, as defined below:

impl Claims {
    pub fn new() -> Self {
        Self { claims: None }
    }

    pub fn is_empty(&self) -> bool {
        self.claims
            .as_ref()
            .map_or(true, |claims| claims.is_empty())
    }

    pub fn insert(&mut self, label: &str, claim: Claim) -> &mut Self {
        todo!()
    }

    pub fn insert_all<T>(&mut self, label: &str, claims: T) -> &mut Self
    where
        T: IntoIterator<Item = Claim>,
    {
        todo!()
    }

    pub fn get_all(&mut self, label: &str) -> Option<Vec<Claim>> {
        todo!()
    }

    pub fn get_all_with<F>(&mut self, label: &str, predicate: F) -> Option<Vec<Claim>>
    where
        F: Fn(&Claim) -> bool,
    {
        todo!()
    }

    pub fn remove_all(&mut self, label: &str) -> Option<Vec<Claim>> {
        todo!()
    }

    pub fn remove_all_with<F>(&mut self, label: &str, predicate: F) -> Option<Vec<Claim>>
    where
        F: Fn(&Claim) -> bool,
    {
        todo!()
    }
}

The Problem

The problem is that I’m concerned about the heap allocations when storing claims by label, which I believe could be avoided by storing all claims together and filtering them by predicate when needed.

Currently, the Claims struct uses a HashMap<String, Vec<Claim>> to partition the claims by label. However, I am considering an alternative approach where all claims are stored together and filtered by label and predicate as needed.

Proposed Solution

I’m considering changing the Claims struct to:

// OLD API
#[derive(Clone, PartialEq, Debug, Eq)]
#[cfg_attr(feature = "serde", derive(Serialize, Deserialize))]
pub struct Claims {
    // So we don't carry an empty map all around when not used
    claims: Option<HashMap<String, Vec<Claim>>>,
}

// NEW API
#[derive(Clone, PartialEq, Debug, Eq)]
#[cfg_attr(feature = "serde", derive(Serialize, Deserialize))]
pub struct Claims {
    // So we don't carry an empty map all around when not used
    claims: Option<HashMap<String, Claim>>,
}

This would avoid the need for a Vec for each label and would store all claims together. When retrieving claims, they would be recursively arranged as needed, based on the label and any predicates.

Considerations

1. Performance Concerns: By storing all claims together, we might reduce heap allocations, but retrieving claims could require more processing (i.e., recursively arranging claims).

2. Complexity: The new structure might add complexity when retrieving or managing claims, especially if they need to be filtered by label and predicate.

3. Over-engineering?: Am I over-engineering the problem by trying to optimize heap allocation at this stage, or is this a valid concern for improving performance and memory usage?

[westshgit]

We are going with the old api if you stumble upon this discussion and could optimize the claims struct please submit a pr!