Phase 2: Optimize gh_covering Performance (2-3× Speedup)

[dshkol]

Summary

This PR optimizes gh_covering by eliminating a redundant encode-decode cycle, achieving 2-3× speedup across typical use cases.

Problem

The previous implementation had an inefficient data flow:

Grid → gh_encode → gh_to_sf → gh_to_spdf → gh_to_sp → gh_decode → Build polygons

The encode-decode round-trip was wasteful since we only needed the decoded coordinates to build polygons.

Solution

Streamlined the flow to:

Grid → gh_encode → gh_decode → Build polygons (direct)

Now gh_covering decodes geohashes once and builds SpatialPolygons directly, skipping the intermediate conversions through gh_to_sf → gh_to_spdf → gh_to_sp.

Performance Results

Benchmark: 100 random points, 0.5° spread

Precision	Old (ms)	New (ms)	Speedup
4	10.9	5.0	2.17×
5	15.9	6.6	2.41×
6	180.5	57.8	3.13×
7	5528.6	1802.5	3.07×

Median speedup: ~2.7×

Higher precisions show larger absolute time savings (e.g., precision 7 saves ~3.7 seconds).

Testing

✅ All 48 existing tests pass
✅ No breaking changes to API or behavior
✅ Same output as before, just faster
✅ Benchmark scripts included in benchmarks/

Changes

• R/gis_tools.R: Refactored gh_covering to build polygons directly from decoded coordinates
• NEWS.md: Documented performance improvement
• benchmarks/: Added microbenchmark scripts for reproducibility

Verification

# Run benchmarks yourself
source("benchmarks/gh_covering_bench_simple.R")

# Run tests
devtools::test()

Next Steps

This is part of a series of optimization PRs:

• ✅ Phase 1: Quick fixes and code quality (#43)
• ✅ Phase 2: gh_covering optimization (this PR)
• 🔜 Phase 3: Duplicate detection optimization
• 🔜 Phase 4: CI/CD modernization (GitHub Actions)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[MichaelChirico]

Do we need to avoid non-ASCII in NEWS?

Suggested change

	1. Optimized `gh_covering` by eliminating redundant encode-decode cycle. The function now decodes geohashes once and builds spatial polygons directly, rather than going through `gh_to_sf` → `gh_to_spdf` → `gh_to_sp` → `gh_decode`. Benchmarks show 2-3× speedup across typical use cases, with larger improvements for higher precision values.
	1. Optimized `gh_covering` by eliminating redundant encode-decode cycle. The function now decodes geohashes once and builds spatial polygons directly, rather than going through `gh_to_sf` -> `gh_to_spdf` -> `gh_to_sp` -> `gh_decode`. Benchmarks show 2-3x speedup across typical use cases, with larger improvements for higher precision values.

[dshkol]

No, superfluous.

[MichaelChirico]

A jj chain should be the easiest way to prevent headache from merge conflicts among this sequence of PRs as review suggestions are incorporated / each branch drifts from the state as filed:

https://github.com/jj-vcs/jj

It seems Claude can basically get the gist of how to use it too even though it's relatively new:

https://claude.ai/share/e53b881a-f456-44dc-ae0c-2d96936cf366