Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister | |
PerlMonks |
comment on |
( [id://3333]=superdoc: print w/replies, xml ) | Need Help?? |
Unfortunately, the cost of using iThreads shared memory, required for the read and write buffers, is so high that using iThreads to do overlapped IO is impractical:
There are other problems also. Whilst thread == interpreter, each read and write means giving up that threads timeslice and a task switch, before the transform thread can do work. But, with interpreter == a kernel thread, when the task switch occurs, there is no guarantee (in fact very low possibility), that the transform thread will get the next timeslice as the round robin is on all kernel threads. Those of this process and all others in the system. The upshot of that is that it takes at least 3 (or more) task switches to read and transform a record and at least 3 more to write one. The idealised situation would be that as soon as the transform thread has got hold of the last record read, the read thread would issue the read for the next one--going straight in to the IO wait--and the transform thread would be able to continue the timeslice. You cannot arrange for that to happen using kernel threads. At least not on a single cpu processor where it would be of most benefit. If thread != interpreter. IE. if more than one thread could be run within a single interpreter, then you could use cooperative (user-space/user dispatched) threads (fibres in Win32 terms. unbound threads in Solaris terms), to achieve this.
I've truncated the write thread participation but it is essentially a mirror image of the read thread. So, with 3 cooperatively dispatched user threads running in the same kernel thread, the process is able to fully utilise every timeslice allocated to it by the OS. Using 3 kernel threads, 2 out of every 3 timeslices allocated to the process have to be given up almost immediately due to IO waits. The time-line for each read-transform-write cycle (simplistically) looks something like:
Even better than the AIO/fibres mechanism above, is overlapped-IO combined with asynchronous procedure calls (APC), but that is "too Redmond" for serious consideration here. Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
In reply to Re^4: Parrot, threads & fears for the future.
by BrowserUk
|
|