The diff_output_lines() function currently calls fprintf() on
each character contained in a line of diff text.
Buffering bytes and writing out a line at a time improves
performance of 'got diff' and 'tog diff'.

To avoid dynamic allocation overhead this patch uses a stack buffer
and splits very long lines across several fprintf() calls.

The test suite caught an issue with embedded NUL bytes which must
be displayed by 'got diff -a'. Embedded NUL bytes are incompatible
with the call fprintf(dest, "%s\n", buf);
But this is an edge case. We can simply write NUL bytes out directly.

ok?

As usual, I would apply this patch to the diff.git repository first
and then refer to that commit's ID in a follow-up commit to got.git.

diff c2cf8015b6da213404a3d87a14ff228d1ca99c50 946cef407c5cd78b4062504b4730ec1c38dad531
blob - daf8b8cb069e52f434eb062cf50fbf0d99b33ecd
blob + 87214405330d85a6d6640dc6015f345f543cbfcf
--- lib/diff_output.c
+++ lib/diff_output.c
@@ -55,6 +55,8 @@ get_atom_byte(int *ch, struct diff_atom *atom, off_t o
 	return 0;
 }
 
+#define DIFF_OUTPUT_BUF_SIZE	512
+
 int
 diff_output_lines(struct diff_output_info *outinfo, FILE *dest,
 		  const char *prefix, struct diff_atom *start_atom,
@@ -71,12 +73,16 @@ diff_output_lines(struct diff_output_info *outinfo, FI
 
 	foreach_diff_atom(atom, start_atom, count) {
 		off_t outlen = 0;
-		int i, ch;
+		int i, ch, nbuf = 0;
 		unsigned int len = atom->len;
-		rc = fprintf(dest, "%s", prefix);
-		if (rc < 0)
-			return errno;
-		outlen += rc;
+		unsigned char buf[DIFF_OUTPUT_BUF_SIZE + 1];
+		size_t n;
+
+		n = strlcpy(buf, prefix, sizeof(buf));
+		if (n >= sizeof(buf))
+			return ENOBUFS;
+		nbuf += n;
+
 		if (len) {
 			rc = get_atom_byte(&ch, atom, len - 1);
 			if (rc)
@@ -96,12 +102,26 @@ diff_output_lines(struct diff_output_info *outinfo, FI
 			rc = get_atom_byte(&ch, atom, i);
 			if (rc)
 				return rc;
-			rc = fprintf(dest, "%c", (unsigned char)ch);
-			if (rc < 0)
-				return errno;
-			outlen += rc;
+			if (nbuf >= DIFF_OUTPUT_BUF_SIZE ||
+			    (nbuf > 0 && ch == '\0')) {
+				buf[nbuf] = '\0';
+				rc = fprintf(dest, "%s", buf);
+				if (rc < 0)
+					return errno;
+				outlen += rc;
+				nbuf = 0;
+			}
+
+			/* Don't buffer embedded NUL bytes in binary files. */
+			if (ch == '\0') {
+				if (fputc(ch, dest) == EOF)
+					return errno;
+				outlen++;
+			} else
+				buf[nbuf++] = ch;
 		}
-		rc = fprintf(dest, "\n");
+		buf[nbuf] = '\0';
+		rc = fprintf(dest, "%s\n", buf);
 		if (rc < 0)
 			return errno;
 		outlen += rc;