/usr/local/lib/swipl/library/thread.pl
All Application Manual Name SummaryHelp

  • swipl
    • library
      • error.pl
      • debug.pl
      • apply.pl
      • lists.pl -- List Manipulation
      • broadcast.pl -- Event service
      • shlib.pl
      • option.pl
      • thread_pool.pl -- Resource bounded thread management
      • gensym.pl
      • settings.pl
      • arithmetic.pl -- Extensible arithmetic
      • main.pl -- Provide entry point for scripts
      • readutil.pl -- Read utilities
      • operators.pl
      • pairs.pl -- Operations on key-value lists
      • prolog_source.pl
      • record.pl
      • quasi_quotations.pl
      • pure_input.pl -- Pure Input from files and streams
      • solution_sequences.pl -- Modify solution sequences
      • ordsets.pl -- Ordered set manipulation
      • random.pl
      • base64.pl -- Base64 encoding and decoding
      • aggregate.pl -- Aggregation operators on backtrackable predicates
      • yall.pl
      • sandbox.pl -- Sandboxed Prolog code
      • apply_macros.pl -- Goal expansion rules to avoid meta-calling
      • assoc.pl
      • prolog_format.pl
      • predicate_options.pl -- Access and analyse predicate options
      • csv.pl
      • pprint.pl -- Pretty Print Prolog terms
      • atom.pl -- Operations on atoms
      • modules.pl -- Module utility predicates
      • occurs.pl -- Finding and counting sub-terms
      • prolog_xref.pl -- Prolog cross-referencer data collection
      • prolog_colour.pl -- Prolog syntax colouring support.
      • lazy_lists.pl
      • ugraphs.pl -- Graph manipulation library
      • url.pl
      • www_browser.pl -- Open a URL in the users browser
      • prolog_pack.pl -- A package manager for Prolog
      • git.pl -- Run GIT commands
      • utf8.pl -- UTF-8 encoding/decoding on lists of character codes.
      • dialect.pl -- Support multiple Prolog dialects
      • system.pl -- System utilities
      • terms.pl -- Term manipulation
      • date.pl -- Process dates and times
      • persistency.pl -- Provide persistent dynamic predicates
      • iostream.pl -- Utilities to deal with streams
      • prolog_stack.pl -- Examine the Prolog stack
      • edinburgh.pl -- Some traditional Edinburgh predicates
      • prolog_clause.pl
      • prolog_breakpoints.pl -- Manage Prolog break-points
      • wfs.pl -- Well Founded Semantics interface
      • prolog_code.pl -- Utilities for reasoning about code
      • sort.pl
      • dicts.pl
      • dif.pl
      • varnumbers.pl
      • pio.pl -- Pure I/O
      • base32.pl
      • charsio.pl -- I/O on Lists of Character Codes
      • codesio.pl -- I/O on Lists of Character Codes
      • coinduction.pl -- Co-Logic Programming
      • heaps.pl -- heaps/priority queues
      • rbtrees.pl -- Red black trees
      • statistics.pl
      • when.pl
      • backcomp.pl
      • ansi_term.pl
      • zip.pl -- Access resource ZIP archives
      • hashtable.pl
      • listing.pl
      • shell.pl -- Elementary shell commands
      • intercept.pl
      • check.pl -- Consistency checking
      • nb_set.pl -- Non-backtrackable sets
      • prolog_wrap.pl
      • exceptions.pl
      • ctypes.pl
      • prolog_versions.pl -- Demand specific (Prolog) versions
      • quintus.pl
      • qsave.pl
      • prolog_autoload.pl -- Autoload all dependencies
      • optparse.pl -- command line parsing
      • make.pl -- Reload modified source files
      • writef.pl -- Old-style formatted write
      • prolog_profile.pl -- Execution profiler
      • fastrw.pl -- Fast reading and writing of terms
      • edit.pl -- Editor interface
      • portray_text.pl
      • explain.pl
      • prolog_jiti.pl
      • tty.pl
      • thread.pl -- High level thread primitives
        • concurrent/3
        • concurrent_forall/2
        • concurrent_forall/3
        • concurrent_and/2
        • concurrent_and/3
        • concurrent_maplist/2
        • concurrent_maplist/3
        • concurrent_maplist/4
        • first_solution/3
        • call_in_thread/2
      • prolog_history.pl
      • prolog_debug.pl -- User level debugging tools
      • threadutil.pl -- Interactive thread utilities
      • prolog_config.pl
      • rwlocks.pl
      • increval.pl
      • tables.pl -- XSB interface to tables
      • strings.pl -- String utilities
      • prolog_codewalk.pl
      • prolog_metainference.pl -- Infer meta-predicate properties
      • streams.pl -- Manage Prolog streams
      • prolog_trace.pl
      • prolog_coverage.pl
      • files.pl
 concurrent(+N, :Goals, +Options) is semidet
Run Goals in parallel using N threads. This call blocks until all work has been done. The Goals must be independent. They should not communicate using shared variables or any form of global data. All Goals must be thread-safe.

Execution succeeds if all goals have succeeded. If one goal fails or throws an exception, other workers are abandoned as soon as possible and the entire computation fails or re-throws the exception. Note that if multiple goals fail or raise an error it is not defined which error or failure is reported.

On successful completion, variable bindings are returned. Note however that threads have independent stacks and therefore the goal is copied to the worker thread and the result is copied back to the caller of concurrent/3.

Choosing the right number of threads is not always obvious. Here are some scenarios:

  • If the goals are CPU intensive and normally all succeeding, typically the number of CPUs is the optimal number of threads. Less does not use all CPUs, more wastes time in context switches and also uses more memory.
  • If the tasks are I/O bound the number of threads is typically higher than the number of CPUs.
  • If one or more of the goals may fail or produce an error, using a higher number of threads may find this earlier.
Arguments:
N- Number of worker-threads to create. Using 1, no threads are created. If N is larger than the number of Goals we create exactly as many threads as there are Goals.
Goals- List of callable terms.
Options- Passed to thread_create/3 for creating the workers. Only options changing the stack-sizes can be used. In particular, do not pass the detached or alias options.
See also
- In many cases, concurrent_maplist/2 and friends is easier to program and is tractable to program analysis.