Re: [OctDev] R: parallel processing in Octave

[Jaroslav H. <hi...@gm...>]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Marco Atzeri <mar...@ya...> wrote:
>
> --- Ven 27/2/09, Jaroslav Hajek <hi...@gm...> ha scritto:
>
>> Da: Jaroslav Hajek <hi...@gm...>
>> Oggetto: [OctDev] parallel processing in Octave
>> A: "octave-forge list" <oct...@li...>
>> Data: Venerdì 27 febbraio 2009, 14:03
>> hi all,
>>
>> in case anyone is interested, I committed today into the
>> "general"
>> package an initial m-file implementation of parcellfun.
>> parcellfun is supposed to be able to evaluate a given
>> function for
>> multiple sets of input arguments using multiple processes.
>>
>> Given N, the function spawns N subprocesses using fork (),
>> and creates
>> 2*N+1 pipes to communicate with them (actually the pipes
>> come first,
>> but you knew that). Therefore, it should be (in theory)
>> portable to
>> any Unix system. Most suitable for systems like GNU/Linux,
>> where fork
>> () is efficient and pipes are a relatively cheap resource.
>> (Dunno
>> about Windoze, for example).
>
> Hi Jaroslav,
> on cygwin fork() is a performance disaster as
> Windows does not support it, and the workaround
> is not efficient at all.
>
> :-((
>

That's bad. I knew it is not as efficient as on GNU/Linux, but didn't
expect a "disaster". I think I'll make the function warn if ispc ()
returns true.
One more reason for me to not ever return to Windows.

regards

-- 
RNDr. Jaroslav Hajek
computing expert
Aeronautical Research and Test Institute (VZLU)
Prague, Czech Republic
url: www.highegg.matfyz.cz