Author: andrewshitov

Using the solution for Task 38, the Monte Carlo method, create a program that calculates the result using multiple threads.

Perl 6 has built-in support for parallel computing. In Task 92, Sleep Sort, we’ve seen how to use the keywords await, gather, and take to spawn a few threads and wait for them to finish. 

When different threads want to modify the same variable, such as a counter, it is wise to introduce atomic operations to make sure the threads do not interfere with each other. Here is the modification of the Monte Carlo program calculating the area of a circle with four parallel threads.

my atomicint $inside = 0;

my $n = 5000;
my $p = 4;

await gather for 1..$p {
    take start {
        for 1..$n {
            my @point = map {2.rand - 1}, 1..2;
            $inside⚛++ if sqrt([+] map *², @point) <= 1;
        }
    }
}

say 4 * $inside / $p / $n;

Run the program a few times, changing the value of $n (the number of random points per thread) and $p (the number of threads). The program should print the value that is close to pi, such as 3.141524.

The new thing here is the atomic increment operation:

$inside⚛++

An atomic operation ensures that the variable is modified with no conflicts between the threads.

The variable itself should be a native integer of a special type—notice how it is declared:

my atomicint $inside;

As the atomic operation uses the Unicode character, there is an ASCII alternative:

atomic-fetch-inc($inside)

Here’s a list of other atomic operations and their synonyms that can be used with parallel processes:

$var ⚛= $value       atomic-assign($var, $value)
my $a = ⚛$var         my $a = atomic-fetch($var)

$var⚛++               atomic-fetch-inc($var)
$var⚛--               atomic-fetch-dec($var)
++⚛$var               atomic-inc-fetch($var)
--⚛$var               atomic-dec-fetch($var)

$var ⚛+= $value       atomic-fetch-add($var, $value)
$var ⚛-= $value       atomic-fetch-dec($var, $value)

N. B. The code in this task works with the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler starting from version 2017.09. Earlier versions do not support atomic operators.

Implement the Sleep Sort algorithm for a few small positive integer values.

The Sleep Sortis a funny implementation of the sorting algorithm. For each input value, an asynchronous thread starts, which waits for the number of seconds equals to the input number and then prints it. So, if all the threads are spawned simultaneously, the output of the program contains the sorted list.

Here is the solution in Perl 6. On the next page, we will go through the bits of it and explain all the important moments.

await gather for @*ARGS -> $value {
    take start {
        sleep $value/10;
        say $value;
    }
}

Pass the values via the command line, and get them sorted.

$ perl6 sleep-sort.pl 9 10 2 8 5 7 6 4 1 3
1
2
3
...
8
9
10

The input values from the command line come to the @*ARGS array. The first step is to iterate over the array:

for @*ARGS -> $value {    
     . . .
}

For each $value, the startblock creates a promise with a code block that waits for the time that is proportional to the value and prints the value after that time.

start {
    sleep $value/10;
    say $value;
}

Dividing the value by ten speeds up the program. On the other hand, the delay should not be too small to avoid race conditions between different threads.

After a separate promise has been created for each input number, the program has to wait until all of them are kept. To achieve that, the gather—take construction is used. The take keyword adds another promise to a sequence, which is then returned as a whole by the gather keyword.

gather for @*ARGS -> $value {
    take start {
        . . .
    }
}

Finally, the await routine ensures the program does not quit until all the promises are kept or, in other words, until all the numbers are printed.

await gather . . . {
    take start {
        . . .
    }
}

Do not wait for a slow code block if it takes too long.

In Perl 6, promises are the best way to create timeouts. In the following example, two code blocks are created; they are executed in parallel.

my $timeout = Promise.in(2).then({
    say 'Timeout after 2 seconds';
});

my $code = start {
    sleep 5;

    say 'Done after 5 seconds';
}

Both $timeout and $code are the promises, i. e. objects of the Promise type. Actually, the $timeout variable is a promise that is executed as a result of keeping the anonymous promise created by the Promise.in(2) call. The in method of the Promise class creates a promise that becomes kept after the given number of seconds.

The second promise, stored in the $code variable, is created by the start function. This is a long-running code block, which does not return within five seconds. The $code promise can be kept only after that time.

The $timeout promise is kept earlier than the $code one. To let the program continue earlier, create another promise with the help of the anyof method:

await Promise.anyof($timeout, $code);

say 'Alldone';

The flow of the whole program is the following: first, the $timeout code block is created and starts running in a separate thread. Then, without waiting, the $code block has been created and launched. Finally, the next line of the main thread is executed; it creates an anonymous thread and waits until it is kept. The await routine blocks the execution of the main program until at least one of its arguments is kept. This program prints ‘Alldone’ after two seconds, and exits:

$ perl6 timeout.pl 
Timeout after 2 seconds
All done

If the $code thread is completed first (say, if we changed the timeout value to 10 seconds), then the output is different, and the timeout is not triggered:

$ perl6 timeout.pl 
Done after 5 seconds
All done

Keep in mind that in our examples, the program finishes after printing ‘All done’. In case the program continues after that, the longest promise will still be running.

For example, add a simple delay like the one shown below:

await Promise.anyof($timeout, $code);
say 'All done';
sleep 20;

In this case, the program prints all three messages:

$ perl6 timeout.pl 
Timeout after 2 seconds
All done
Done after 5 seconds