I am interested in knowing what would be the best way to implement a thread based queue.
For example:
I have 10 actions which I want to execute with only 4 threads. I would like to create a queue with all the 10 actions placed linearly and start the first 4 action with 4 threads, once one of the thread is done executing, the next one will start etc - So at a time, the number of thread is either 4 or less than 4.
There is a Queue class in thread in the standard library. Using that you can do something like this:
require 'thread'
queue = Queue.new
threads = []
# add work to the queue
queue << work_unit
4.times do
threads << Thread.new do
# loop until there are no more things to do
until queue.empty?
# pop with the non-blocking flag set, this raises
# an exception if the queue is empty, in which case
# work_unit will be set to nil
work_unit = queue.pop(true) rescue nil
if work_unit
# do work
end
end
# when there is no more work, the thread will stop
end
end
# wait until all threads have completed processing
threads.each { |t| t.join }
The reason I pop with the non-blocking flag is that between the until queue.empty? and the pop another thread may have pop'ed the queue, so unless the non-blocking flag is set we could get stuck at that line forever.
If you're using MRI, the default Ruby interpreter, bear in mind that threads will not be absolutely concurrent. If your work is CPU bound you may just as well run single threaded. If you have some operation that blocks on IO you may get some parallelism, but YMMV. Alternatively, you can use an interpreter that allows full concurrency, such as jRuby or Rubinius.
There area a few gems that implement this pattern for you; parallel, peach,and mine is called threach (or jruby_threach under jruby). It's a drop-in replacement for #each but allows you to specify how many threads to run with, using a SizedQueue underneath to keep things from spiraling out of control.
So...
(1..10).threach(4) {|i| do_my_work(i) }
Not pushing my own stuff; there are plenty of good implementations out there to make things easier.
If you're using JRuby, jruby_threach is a much better implementation -- Java just offers a much richer set of threading primatives and data structures to use.
Executable descriptive example:
require 'thread'
p tasks = [
{:file => 'task1'},
{:file => 'task2'},
{:file => 'task3'},
{:file => 'task4'},
{:file => 'task5'}
]
tasks_queue = Queue.new
tasks.each {|task| tasks_queue << task}
# run workers
workers_count = 3
workers = []
workers_count.times do |n|
workers << Thread.new(n+1) do |my_n|
while (task = tasks_queue.shift(true) rescue nil) do
delay = rand(0)
sleep delay
task[:result] = "done by worker ##{my_n} (in #{delay})"
p task
end
end
end
# wait for all threads
workers.each(&:join)
# output results
puts "all done"
p tasks
You could use a thread pool. It's a fairly common pattern for this type of problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_pool_pattern
Github seems to have a few implementations you could try out:
https://github.com/search?type=Everything&language=Ruby&q=thread+pool
Celluloid have a worker pool example that does this.
I use a gem called work_queue. Its really practic.
Example:
require 'work_queue'
wq = WorkQueue.new 4, 10
(1..10).each do |number|
wq.enqueue_b("Thread#{number}") do |thread_name|
puts "Hello from the #{thread_name}"
end
end
wq.join
Related
I have a the following code:
FTP ... do |ftp|
files.each do |file|
...
ftp.put(file)
sleep 1
end
end
I'd like to run the each file in a separate thread or some parallel way. What's the correct way to do this? Would this be right?
Here's my try on the parallel gem
FTP ... do |ftp|
Parallel.map(files) do |file|
...
ftp.put(file)
sleep 1
end
end
The issue with parallel is puts/outputs can occur at the same time like so:
as = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
results = Parallel.map(as) do |a|
puts a
end
How can I force puts to occur like they normally would line separated.
The whole point of parallelization is to run at the same time. But if there's some part of the process that you'd like to run some of the code sequentially you could use a mutex like:
semaphore = Mutex.new
as = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
results = Parallel.map(as, in_threads: 3) do |a|
# Parallel stuff
sleep rand
semaphore.synchronize {
# Sequential stuff
puts a
}
# Parallel stuff
sleep rand
end
You'll see that it prints stuff correctly but not necesarily in the same order. I used in_threads instead of in_processes (default) because Mutex doesn't work with processes. See below for an alternative if you do need processes.
References:
http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.2.0/Mutex.html
http://dev.housetrip.com/2014/01/28/efficient-cross-processing-locking-in-ruby/
In the interest of keeping it simple, here's what I'd do with built-in Thread:
results = files.map do |file|
result = Thread.new do
ftp.put(file)
end
end
Note that this code assumes that ftp.put(file) returns safely. If that isn't guaranteed, you'll have to do that yourself by wrapping calls in a timeout block and have each thread return an exception if one is thrown and then at the very end of the loop have a blocking check to see that results does not contain any exceptions.
I'm trying to make multiple HTTP requests in Ruby. I know it can be done in NodeJS quite easily. I'm trying to do it in Ruby using threads, but I don't know if that's the best way. I haven't had a successful run for high numbers of requests (e.g. over 50).
require 'json'
require 'net/http'
urls = [
{"link" => "url1"},
{"link" => "url2"},
{"link" => "url3"}
]
urls.each_value do |thing|
Thread.new do
result = Net::HTTP.get(URI.parse(thing))
json_stuff = JSON::parse(result)
info = json["person"]["bio"]["info"]
thing["name"] = info
end
end
# Wait until threads are done.
while !urls.all? { |url| url.has_key? "name" }; end
puts urls
Any thoughts?
Instead of the while clause you used, you can call Thread#join to make the main thread wait for other threads.
threads = []
urls.each_value do |thing|
threads << Thread.new do
result = Net::HTTP.get(URI.parse(thing))
json_stuff = JSON::parse(result)
info = json["person"]["bio"]["info"]
thing["name"] = info
end
end
# Wait until threads are done.
threads.each { |aThread| aThread.join }
Your way might work, but it's going to end up in a busy loop, eating up CPU cycles when it really doesn't need to. A better way is to only check whether you're done when a request completes. One way to accomplish this would be to use a Mutex and a ConditionVariable.
Using a mutex and condition variable, we can have the main thread waiting, and when one of the worker threads receives its response, it can wake up the main thread. The main thread can then see if any URLs remain to be downloaded; if so, it'll just go to sleep again, waiting; otherwise, it's done.
To wait for a signal:
mutex.synchronize { cv.wait mutex }
To wake up the waiting thread:
mutex.synchronize { cv.signal }
You might want to check for done-ness and set thing['name'] inside the mutex.synchronize block to avoid accessing data in multiple threads simultaneously.
I'm aware that there are great gems like Parallel, but I came up with the class below as an exercise.
It's working fine, but when doing a lot of iterations it happens sometimes that Ruby will get "stuck". When pressing CTRL+C I can see from the backtrace that it's always in lines 38 or 45 (the both Marshal lines).
Can you see anything that is wrong here? It seems to be that the Pipes are "hanging", so I thought I might be using them in a wrong way.
My goal was to iterate through an array (which I pass as 'objects') with a limited number of forks (max_forks) and to return some values. Additionally I wanted to guarantee that all childs get killed when the parent gets killed (even in case of kill -9), this is why I introduced the "life_line" Pipe (I've read here on Stackoverflow that this might do the trick).
class Parallel
def self.do_fork(max_forks, objects)
waiter_threads = []
fork_counter = []
life_line = {}
comm_line = {}
objects.each do |object|
key = rand(24 ** 24).to_s(36)
sleep(0.01) while fork_counter.size >= max_forks
if fork_counter.size < max_forks
fork_counter << true
life_line[key] = {}
life_line[key][:r], life_line[key][:w] = IO.pipe
comm_line[key] = {}
comm_line[key][:r], comm_line[key][:w] = IO.pipe
pid = fork {
life_line[key][:w].close
comm_line[key][:r].close
Thread.new {
begin
life_line[key][:r].read
rescue SignalException, SystemExit => e
raise e
rescue Exception => e
Kernel.exit
end
}
Marshal.dump(yield(object), comm_line[key][:w]) # return yield
}
waiter_threads << Thread.new {
Process.wait(pid)
comm_line[key][:w].close
reply = Marshal.load(comm_line[key][:r])
# process reply here
comm_line[key][:r].close
life_line[key][:r].close
life_line[key][:w].close
life_line[key] = nil
fork_counter.pop
}
end
end
waiter_threads.each { |k| k.join } # wait for all threads to finish
end
end
The bug was this:
A pipe can handle only a certain amount of data (e.g. 64 KB).
Once you write more than that, the Pipe will get "stuck" forever.
An easy solution is to read the pipe in a thread before you start writing to it.
comm_line = IO.pipe
# Buffered Pipe Reading (in case bigger than 64 KB)
reply = ""
read_buffer = Thread.new {
while !comm_line[0].eof?
reply = Marshal.load(comm_line[0])
end
}
child_pid = fork {
comm_line[0].close
comm_line[0].write "HUGE DATA LARGER THAN 64 KB"
}
Process.wait(child_pid)
comm_line[1].close
read_buffer.join
comm_line[0].close
puts reply # outputs the "HUGE DATA"
I don't think the problem is with Marshal. The more obvious one seems to be that your fork may finish execution before the waiter thread gets to it (leading to the latter to wait forever).
Try changing Process.wait(pid) to Process.wait(pid, Process::WNOHANG). The Process::WNOHANG flag instructs Ruby to not hang if there are no children (matching the given PID, if any) available. Note that this may not be available on all platforms but at the very least should work on Linux.
There's a number of other potential problems with your code but if you just came up with it "as an exercise", they probably don't matter. For example, Marshal.load does not like to encounter EOFs, so I'd probably guard against those by saying something like Marshal.load(comm_line[key][:r]) unless comm_line[key][:r].eof? or loop until comm_line[key][:r].eof? if you expect there to be several objects to be read.
I have a database full of URLs that I need to test HTTP response time for on a regular basis. I want to have many worker threads combing the database at all times for a URL that hasn't been tested recently, and if it finds one, test it.
Of course, this could cause multiple threads to snag the same URL from the database. I don't want this. So, I'm trying to use Mutexes to prevent this from happening. I realize there are other options at the database level (optimistic locking, pessimistic locking), but I'd at least prefer to figure out why this isn't working.
Take a look at this test code I wrote:
threads = []
mutex = Mutex.new
50.times do |i|
threads << Thread.new do
while true do
url = nil
mutex.synchronize do
url = URL.first(:locked_for_testing => false, :times_tested.lt => 150)
if url
url.locked_for_testing = true
url.save
end
end
if url
# simulate testing the url
sleep 1
url.times_tested += 1
url.save
mutex.synchronize do
url.locked_for_testing = false
url.save
end
end
end
sleep 1
end
end
threads.each { |t| t.join }
Of course there is no real URL testing here. But what should happen is at the end of the day, each URL should end up with "times_tested" equal to 150, right?
(I'm basically just trying to make sure the mutexes and worker-thread mentality are working)
But each time I run it, a few odd URLs here and there end up with times_tested equal to a much lower number, say, 37, and locked_for_testing frozen on "true"
Now as far as I can tell from my code, if any URL gets locked, it will have to unlock. So I don't understand how some URLs are ending up "frozen" like that.
There are no exceptions and I've tried adding begin/ensure but it didn't do anything.
Any ideas?
I'd use a Queue, and a master to pull what you want. if you have a single master you control what's getting accessed. This isn't perfect but it's not going to blow up because of concurrency, remember if you aren't locking the database a mutex doesn't really help you is something else accesses the db.
code completely untested
require 'thread'
queue = Queue.new
keep_running = true
# trap cntrl_c or something to reset keep_running
master = Thread.new do
while keep_running
# check if we need some work to do
if queue.size == 0
urls = URL.all(:times_tested.lt => 150)
urls.each do |u|
queue << u.id
end
# keep from spinning the queue
sleep(0.1)
end
end
end
workers = []
50.times do
workers << Thread.new do
while keep_running
# get an id
id = queue.shift
url = URL.get(id)
#do something with the url
url.save
sleep(0.1)
end
end
end
workers.each do |w|
w.join
end
I'm using threads in a program that uploads files over sftp. The number of files that could be upload can potentially be very large or very small. I'd like to be able to have 5 or less simultaneous uploads, and if there's more have them wait. My understanding is usually a conditional variable would be used for this, but it looks to me like that would only allow for 1 thread at a time.
cv = ConditionVariable.new
t2 = Thread.new {
mutex.synchronize {
cv.wait(mutex)
upload(file)
cv.signal
}
}
I think that should tell it to wait for the cv to be available the release it when done. My question is how can I do this allowing more than 1 at a time while still limiting the number?
edit: I'm using Ruby 1.8.7 on Windows from the 1 click installer
Use a ThreadPool instead. See Deadlock in ThreadPool (the accepted answer, specifically).
A word of caution -- there is no real concurrency in Ruby unless you are using JRuby. Also, exception in thread will freeze main loop unless you are in debug mode.
require "thread"
POOL_SIZE = 5
items_to_process = (0..100).to_a
message_queue = Queue.new
start_thread =
lambda do
Thread.new(items_to_process.shift) do |i|
puts "Processing #{i}"
message_queue.push(:done)
end
end
items_left = items_to_process.length
[items_left, POOL_SIZE].min.times do
start_thread[]
end
while items_left > 0
message_queue.pop
items_left -= 1
start_thread[] unless items_left < POOL_SIZE
end