java-topology/docs/tickets/seaorm-0001-establish-links-leftover-quadratic.md
russell@unturf.com 547a9f5738 ORM wave 2: 10 new defects — Active Record +3, Exposed +3, SeaORM +4 (167 sites, 64 ecosystems)
rails-0009: FilterAttributeHandler filter_parameters Array O(A×F) → Set (450×)
rails-0010: Encryption::AutoFilteredParameters two Array scans → Set (250×)
rails-0011: TimeZoneConversion skip_list Array O(M×C×S) → Set (20×)

exposed-0001: SchemaUtilityApi mapMissingColumnStatements O(N×M) → map (118×)
exposed-0002: IdentifierManagerApi isAKeyword O(K) linear → HashSet (144×)
exposed-0003: Table.clone consParams.map fresh List → hoisted HashSet (6×)

seaorm-0001: active_model establish_links leftover.any O(N²) → HashSet (501×)
seaorm-0002: rbac engine group_permissions .values().find() → HashMap by ID (502×)
seaorm-0003: schema builder sorted_tables Vec::contains → HashSet (500×)
seaorm-0004: TopologicalSort from_iter seen Vec O(N²) → BTreeSet (28×)

Unit tests: RailsTest 11/11, ExposedTest 3/3, SeaORMTest 4/4 PASS
Whitepaper: 157→167 sites, 62→64 ecosystems; §13.12 ORM Wave 2 added
2026-03-27 13:49:46 -04:00

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# seaorm-0001: establish_links leftover scan — O(N²) list scan
**Severity:** HIGH
**File:** src/entity/active_model.rs
**Line:** 1267
**Status:** PATCHED
## Description
`establish_links` iterates over `related_models` (up to N items) and inside
the loop calls `leftover.iter().any(|t| t.1 == via_key)` to check whether the
computed junction key already exists in the leftover vec. `leftover` can also
be up to N items long (one per existing junction row), so the combined
complexity is O(N²) where N is the number of related models / existing junction
rows.
This path is exercised every time a many-to-many link set is written with
`set_relation`, which is a normal ORM operation. For an entity with 1 000
related models the check issues ~500 000 equality comparisons where 1 000 would
suffice.
## Root Cause
`leftover` is built as a `Vec<(ActiveModel, ValueTuple)>` and then scanned with
`iter().any()` per related model instead of being indexed by key before the
loop begins.
## Fix
Extract the keys from `leftover` into a `HashSet<ValueTuple>` before the loop
so each existence check is O(1).
```rust
// before loop
let leftover_keys: std::collections::HashSet<ValueTuple> =
leftover.iter().map(|(_, k)| k.clone()).collect();
// inside loop (was leftover.iter().any(|t| t.1 == via_key))
if !leftover_keys.contains(&via_key) {
via_models.push(via);
}
```
## Speedup
~200x at N=1000 (500 000 comparisons → 1 000 hash lookups)