A packed list (`space | key | len | value`, repeated) cannot answer "where is this coordinate":
record N's offset is the sum of every record before it. The key gives ORDER, and order is not an
address, so no coordinate could be turned into a place and not even a binary search was possible —
the middle record's offset is just as unknowable. Every lookup walked, every batch of a listing
walked again, and a read of one record cost as much as the store (measured: 110 ms per get, 119 ms
per `spaces`, 1,206 ms for a 6,127-record listing).
v3 puts the addresses in the image:
[header 46] magic, version, curve, extents, counts
[space table: space_count x 48] space | first index | records
[index: record_count x 40] key | value offset | value length
[values: packed, in index order]
A lookup is now a binary search over arithmetic addresses (`index_off + i * 40`); a listing starts
at its space's first index entry and streams, reading a span of values per batch; asking which
spaces exist is the space table; a spatial range is a contiguous run of index entries. An index
entry is 40 bytes against the packed frame's 64, so the image also gets smaller.
Measured by `verify-enum-cost.sh` between a 500-record store and a 20,000-record one:
listing the same 10-record space: 3.22 ms -> 3.27 ms (1.0x, store grew 40x)
asking which spaces exist: 3.25 ms -> 3.08 ms (0.9x)
reading a coordinate that is there: 1.07 ms -> 1.25 ms (1.2x)
reading one that is not: 1.19 ms -> 1.22 ms (1.0x)
Nothing scales with the store any more, which is the premise: knowing a coordinate is what lets you
reach it.
Two bugs found on the way, both of the kind only a real image shows. The index was written with a
4-byte value length (`Entry` carries it in a u32) while the header's arithmetic and both readers
assumed 8 — every entry four bytes short, the last of them overlapping the values. And the digest's
`bytes` figure added the layout's own header length, so two layouts of one store digested
differently; it is now the records' logical size, which is the same number either way.
Verified: verify-kernel-append.sh, verify-kernel-checkpoint.sh, verify-enum.sh, verify-enum-cost.sh
and verify-frontend.sh all pass, and the workspace tests pass — including a new fixture test in
cube-store-raw that reads a 700-byte image the kernel itself wrote, because a hand-built image
cannot catch a misunderstanding shared by the builder.
surface-camera-build
1db3abce93