Add labels.MapLabels() for setting mapped labels

This makes building labels faster by having a fast lookup for string->index path via a map.
Since we now need to populate both the slice that maps index->string and a map that gives us string->index.
For that we add labels.MapLabels() function which handles updating the static mapping.

Signed-off-by: Lukasz Mierzwa <l.mierzwa@gmail.com>

cmd/prometheus/labels_stringlabels.go

@@ -101,9 +101,8 @@ func selectBlockStringsToMap(block *tsdb.Block) ([]string, error) {
 	})
 
 	mappedLabels := make([]string, 0, 256)
-	mappedLabels = append(mappedLabels, "") // We must always store empty string.
 	for i, c := range costs {
-		if i > 254 {
+		if i >= 256 {
 			break
 		}
 		mappedLabels = append(mappedLabels, c.name)
@@ -132,6 +131,6 @@ func mapCommonLabelSymbols(db *tsdb.DB, logger *slog.Logger) error {
 		return err
 	}
 	logger.Info("Mapped common label strings", slog.Int("count", len(mappedLabels)))
-	labels.MappedLabels = mappedLabels
+	labels.MapLabels(mappedLabels)
 	return nil
 }

model/labels/labels_stringlabels.go

@@ -23,9 +23,41 @@ import (
 	"github.com/cespare/xxhash/v2"
 )
 
-// List of labels that should be mapped to a single byte value.
+var (
-// Obviously can't have more than 256 here.
+	// List of labels that should be mapped to a single byte value.
-var MappedLabels = []string{
+	// Obviously can't have more than 256 here.
+	mappedLabels     = []string{}
+	mappedLabelIndex = map[string]byte{}
+)
+
+// MapLabels takes a list of strings that shuld use a single byte storage
+// inside labels, making them use as little memory as possible.
+// Since we use a single byte mapping we can only have 256 such strings.
+//
+// We MUST store empty string ("") as one of the values here and if you
+// don't pass it into MapLabels() then it will be injected.
+//
+// If you pass more strings than 256 then extra strings will be ignored.
+func MapLabels(names []string) {
+	// We must always store empty string. Push it to the front of the slice if not present.
+	if !slices.Contains(names, "") {
+		names = append([]string{""}, names...)
+	}
+
+	mappedLabels = make([]string, 0, 256)
+	mappedLabelIndex = make(map[string]byte, 256)
+
+	for i, name := range names {
+		if i >= 256 {
+			break
+		}
+		mappedLabels = append(mappedLabels, name)
+		mappedLabelIndex[name] = byte(i)
+	}
+}
+
+func init() {
+	names := []string{
 		// Empty string, this must be present here.
 		"",
 		// These label names are always present on every time series.
@@ -105,6 +137,8 @@ var MappedLabels = []string{
 		"node_filesystem_files_free",
 		"node_filesystem_files",
 		"node_filesystem_avail_bytes",
+	}
+	MapLabels(names)
 }
 
 // Labels is implemented by a single flat string holding name/value pairs.
@@ -144,15 +178,14 @@ func decodeString(data string, index int) (string, int) {
 	size, index, mapped = decodeSize(data, index)
 	if mapped {
 		b := data[index]
-		return MappedLabels[int(b)], index + size
+		return mappedLabels[int(b)], index + size
 	}
 	return data[index : index+size], index + size
 }
 
 func encodeShortString(s string) (int, byte) {
-	i := slices.Index(MappedLabels, s)
+	if i, ok := mappedLabelIndex[s]; ok {
-	if i >= 0 {
+		return 0, i
-		return 0, byte(i)
 	}
 	return len(s), 0
 }