style+perf: clean-up and optimize remove_empty_byte_from_padded_bytes…

…_unchecked fn (#41)

* style+perf: clean-up and optimize remove_empty_byte_from_padded_bytes_unchecked function

* ci: make cargo fmt use nightly

There were a bunch of warnings that some of our set fmt properties were not being run:
Warning: can't set `wrap_comments = true`, unstable features are only available in nightly channel.
Warning: can't set `normalize_comments = true`, unstable features are only available in nightly channel.

* style: cargo fmt

* Revert "ci: make cargo fmt use nightly"

Getting "error: toolchain 'nightly-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu' is not installed" on github,
and don't feel like debugging. Not even sure how cargo/rust are installed.
Do they come preloaded by default?

This reverts commit 6e87e0a.

* Revert "style: cargo fmt"

This reverts commit ae70bf5.

* style: cargo fmt

src/helpers.rs

@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ pub fn set_bytes_canonical_manual(data: &[u8]) -> Fr {
 
 // Functions being used
 
-/// Copied the referenced bytes array argument into a Vec, inserting an empty
+/// Copies the referenced bytes array argument into a Vec, inserting an empty
 /// byte at the front of every 31 bytes. The empty byte is padded at the low
 /// address, because we use big endian to interpret a field element.
 /// This ensures every 32 bytes is within the valid range of a field element for
@@ -67,31 +67,65 @@ pub fn convert_by_padding_empty_byte(data: &[u8]) -> Vec<u8> {
     valid_data
 }
 
+/// Removes the first byte from each 32-byte chunk in a byte slice (including the last potentially incomplete one).
+///
+/// This function is the reverse of `convert_by_padding_empty_byte`. It takes a byte slice that it assumed contains
+/// field elements, where each complete field element is 32 bytes and begins with an empty padding byte
+/// that needs to be removed. The final element may be smaller than 32 bytes, but should also be 0-byte prefixed.
+///
+/// # Arguments
+/// * `data` - 0-byte prefixed big-endian encoded 32-byte chunks representing bn254 field elements. The final element may be shorter.
+///
+/// # Returns
+/// A new `Vec<u8>` with the first byte of each field element removed. For complete elements,
+/// this removes one byte per 32 bytes. For the final partial element (if any), it still
+/// removes the first byte.
+///
+/// # Safety
+/// This function is marked "unchecked" because it assumes without verification that:
+/// * The input contains bn254-encoded field elements are exactly 32 bytes
+/// * The first byte of each field element is safe to remove
+///
+/// # Example
+/// ```text
+/// [0, 1, 2, 3, ..., 31, 0, 1, 2, 3] -> [1, 2, 3, ..., 31, 1, 2, 3]
+/// ```
+///
+/// ```
+/// # use rust_kzg_bn254::helpers::remove_empty_byte_from_padded_bytes_unchecked;
+/// let mut input = vec![1u8; 70]; // Two complete 32-byte element plus 6 bytes
+/// input[0] = 0; input[32] = 0;
+///
+/// let output = remove_empty_byte_from_padded_bytes_unchecked(&input);
+///
+/// assert_eq!(output, vec![1u8; 67]); // Two complete 31-byte element plus 5 bytes
+/// ```
+///
+/// # Implementation Detail: this function is equivalent to this simple iterator chain:
+/// ```ignore
+/// data.chunks(BYTES_PER_FIELD_ELEMENT).flat_map(|chunk| &chunk[1..]).copied().collect()
+/// ```
+/// However, it is ~30x faster than the above because of the pre-allocation + SIMD instructions optimization.
 pub fn remove_empty_byte_from_padded_bytes_unchecked(data: &[u8]) -> Vec<u8> {
-    let data_size = data.len();
-    let parse_size = BYTES_PER_FIELD_ELEMENT;
-    let data_len = data_size.div_ceil(parse_size);
-
-    let put_size = BYTES_PER_FIELD_ELEMENT - 1;
-    let mut valid_data = vec![0u8; data_len * put_size];
-    let mut valid_len = valid_data.len();
-
-    for i in 0..data_len {
-        let start = i * parse_size + 1; // Skip the first byte which is the empty byte
-        let mut end = (i + 1) * parse_size;
-
-        if end > data_size {
-            end = data_size;
-            valid_len = i * put_size + end - start;
-        }
-
-        // Calculate the end of the slice in the output vector
-        let output_end = i * put_size + end - start;
-        valid_data[i * put_size..output_end].copy_from_slice(&data[start..end]);
+    // We pre-allocate the exact size of the output vector by calculating the number
+    // of zero bytes that will be removed from the input.
+    let empty_bytes_to_remove = data.len().div_ceil(BYTES_PER_FIELD_ELEMENT);
+    let mut output = Vec::with_capacity(data.len() - empty_bytes_to_remove);
+
+    // We first process all the complete 32-byte chunks (representing bn254 encoded field elements).
+    // We remove the first byte of each chunk, assuming (but unchecked) that it is a zero byte.
+    // Note: we could use a single iterator loop, but separating like this allows the compiler to generate
+    // simd instructions for this main loop, which is much faster (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_vectorization).
+    for chunk in data.chunks_exact(BYTES_PER_FIELD_ELEMENT) {
+        output.extend_from_slice(&chunk[1..]);
     }
-
-    valid_data.truncate(valid_len);
-    valid_data
+    // We handle the last chunk separately, still assuming (but unchecked) that
+    // it represents a zero prefixed partial field element.
+    let remainder = data.chunks_exact(BYTES_PER_FIELD_ELEMENT).remainder();
+    if !remainder.is_empty() {
+        output.extend_from_slice(&remainder[1..]);
+    }
+    output
 }
 
 pub fn set_bytes_canonical(data: &[u8]) -> Fr {