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

  • swipl
    • library
      • error.pl
      • debug.pl -- Print debug messages and test assertions
      • apply.pl
      • lists.pl -- List Manipulation
      • broadcast.pl
      • shlib.pl
      • option.pl
      • thread_pool.pl
      • gensym.pl
      • settings.pl
      • arithmetic.pl
      • main.pl -- Provide entry point for scripts
      • readutil.pl -- Read utilities
      • operators.pl -- Manage operators
      • pairs.pl
      • prolog_source.pl
      • record.pl -- Access compound arguments by name
      • quasi_quotations.pl -- Define Quasi Quotation syntax
      • pure_input.pl
      • solution_sequences.pl -- Modify solution sequences
      • ordsets.pl
      • random.pl
      • base64.pl
      • aggregate.pl -- Aggregation operators on backtrackable predicates
      • yall.pl
      • sandbox.pl
      • apply_macros.pl -- Goal expansion rules to avoid meta-calling
      • assoc.pl -- Binary associations
      • prolog_format.pl
      • predicate_options.pl -- Access and analyse predicate options
      • csv.pl -- Process CSV (Comma-Separated Values) data
      • pprint.pl -- Pretty Print Prolog terms
      • atom.pl -- Operations on atoms
      • modules.pl
      • occurs.pl
      • prolog_xref.pl
      • prolog_colour.pl
      • lazy_lists.pl
      • ugraphs.pl
      • url.pl -- Analysing and constructing URL
      • www_browser.pl -- Open a URL in the users browser
      • prolog_pack.pl
      • git.pl -- Run GIT commands
      • utf8.pl
      • dialect.pl
      • system.pl
      • terms.pl
      • date.pl
      • persistency.pl
      • iostream.pl -- Utilities to deal with streams
      • prolog_stack.pl
      • edinburgh.pl
      • 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 -- Dict utilities
      • dif.pl
      • varnumbers.pl -- Utilities for numbered terms
      • pio.pl -- Pure I/O
      • base32.pl -- Base32 encoding and decoding
      • charsio.pl
      • codesio.pl -- I/O on Lists of Character Codes
      • coinduction.pl
      • heaps.pl -- heaps/priority queues
      • rbtrees.pl -- Red black trees
      • statistics.pl -- Get information about resource usage
      • when.pl -- Conditional coroutining
      • backcomp.pl -- Backward compatibility
      • check.pl
      • nb_set.pl -- Non-backtrackable sets
      • threadutil.pl -- Interactive thread utilities
      • macros.pl -- Macro expansion
      • prolog_jiti.pl
      • edit.pl -- Editor interface
      • hashtable.pl
      • make.pl -- Reload modified source files
      • strings.pl
      • qsave.pl -- Save current program as a state or executable
      • zip.pl -- Access resource ZIP archives
      • optparse.pl -- command line parsing
      • portray_text.pl
      • prolog_versions.pl -- Demand specific (Prolog) versions
      • listing.pl -- List programs and pretty print clauses
      • 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
      • intercept.pl -- Intercept and signal interface
      • increval.pl -- Incremental dynamic predicate modification
      • tables.pl
      • ansi_term.pl
      • ctypes.pl -- Character code classification
      • quintus.pl
      • shell.pl -- Elementary shell commands
      • streams.pl -- Manage Prolog streams
      • prolog_codewalk.pl -- Prolog code walker
      • prolog_history.pl -- Per-directory persistent commandline history
      • prolog_config.pl
      • prolog_coverage.pl -- Coverage analysis tool
      • files.pl
      • prolog_wrap.pl
      • prolog_debug.pl
      • prolog_profile.pl -- Execution profiler
      • writef.pl
      • exceptions.pl -- Exception classification
      • fastrw.pl
      • tty.pl
      • readln.pl
      • help.pl -- Text based manual
      • prolog_trace.pl
      • prolog_autoload.pl -- Autoload all dependencies
      • prolog_metainference.pl
      • explain.pl -- Describe Prolog Terms
      • oset.pl
      • rwlocks.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.