(improvement) Add __slots__ to _Frame to eliminate per-instance __dict__ (30-40ns saving, 264 bytes saved per call)

[mykaul]

Summary

Add __slots__ to the _Frame class in cassandra/connection.py. Eliminates per-instance __dict__ allocation.

Motivation

_Frame is instantiated for every response frame received from the server. It has exactly 6 fixed attributes (version, flags, stream, opcode, body_offset, end_pos) and is never monkey-patched or dynamically extended. Adding __slots__ removes the per-instance __dict__, reducing memory pressure on high-throughput workloads.

Benchmark (CPython 3.14, per-call)

Memory:

	Size
Original (obj + __dict__)	48 + 296 = 344 bytes
Optimized (__slots__)	80 bytes
Savings per frame	264 bytes (76.7%)

Timing:

Operation	Original	Optimized	Savings per call
Construction	146ns	118ns	28ns (19%)
Attribute access (4 attrs)	78ns	40ns	38ns (49%)

Bulk (10K frames):

• 1,285,888 → 885,120 bytes = 400KB saved (31%)
• At 1K concurrent in-flight frames: ~257KB saved, reducing GC pressure

Changes

• cassandra/connection.py: Add __slots__ = ('version', 'flags', 'stream', 'opcode', 'body_offset', 'end_pos') to _Frame

Testing

Unit tests pass (28/28 in test_connection.py). Verified that _Frame instances no longer have __dict__.

[mykaul]

Benchmark results (CPython 3.14, 500k iterations)

Per-instance memory:

	Size
Original (obj + __dict__)	48 + 296 = 344 bytes
Optimized (__slots__)	80 bytes
Savings per frame	264 bytes (76.7%)

Per-call timing:

Operation	Original	Optimized	Δ per call
Construction	146ns	118ns	-28ns
Attribute access (4 attrs)	78ns	40ns	-38ns

Bulk allocation (10k frames):

• Original: 1,285,888 bytes → Optimized: 885,120 bytes → 400KB saved (31%)
• At 1K concurrent in-flight frames: ~257KB saved, reducing GC pressure

_Frame has exactly 6 fixed attributes and is never dynamically extended — textbook __slots__ candidate.

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between e5f5d62 and 3d7f16d.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• cassandra/connection.py

---

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[mykaul]

Rebased onto current `origin/master` (was based on an older commit; no conflicts).

Per a related discussion on PR #805/#806 about __slots__ risk, I re-verified that `_Frame`'s slot list is still complete after the rebase:

• Grepped the whole repo for every `_Frame(...)` construction site and every attribute read/write touching a `_Frame` instance (cassandra/connection.py, tests, and the newly-added DRIVER-153 (SCYLLA_USE_METADATA_ID) commits that landed on master after this branch forked).
• The only construction site is Connection._read_frame_header (cassandra/connection.py), passing exactly the 6 declared attributes (version, flags, stream, opcode, body_offset, end_pos).
• Connection.process_msg and everywhere else only reads those same 6 attributes (header.stream, header.version, header.flags, header.opcode, frame.body_offset, frame.end_pos) — nothing assigns a new attribute post-construction.
• No subclasses of _Frame exist anywhere in the codebase.
• The DRIVER-153 changes (skip_meta/result_metadata_id handling) touch ExecuteMessage/_QueryMessage, PreparedStatement, and cluster.py — they don't touch _Frame or its construction/usage at all.

Conclusion: the __slots__ list is still complete and safe; no code changes were needed beyond the rebase.

Also ran tests/unit/test_connection.py, tests/unit/test_protocol.py, and the full tests/unit/ suite locally: 720 passed, 88 skipped (pre-existing skips, unrelated to this change), 0 failures.

Force-pushed the rebased commit (same single commit, no new commits added). Still a draft.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

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Adds __slots__ to the internal _Frame class to avoid per-instance __dict__ allocation, reducing memory usage and improving hot-path performance when parsing response frames.

Changes:

• Add __slots__ to _Frame with its fixed set of attributes.

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