Thanks, Mikera You are right about merge:
user=> (def m1 (apply hash-map (range 10000000))) #'user/m1 user=> (def m2 (apply hash-map (range 5000000 15000000))) #'user/m2 user=> (time (def m3 (merge m1 m2))) "Elapsed time: 5432.184582 msecs" #'user/m3 user=> (time (def m4 (clojure.lang.PersistentHashMap/splice m1 m2))) "Elapsed time: 1064.268269 msecs" #'user/m4 user=> (= m3 m4) true user=> as you would expect, a splice is faster and causes less of a memory spike. Jules On Sunday, 16 February 2014 10:01:04 UTC, Mikera wrote: > > +1 for this approach - I've wanted something like this several times. > > It's only an "optimisation", but it's a very useful one. Same technique > can probably be used to accelerate "merge" significantly which is a pretty > common operation when you are building map-like structures. > > On Sunday, 16 February 2014 07:06:24 UTC+8, Jules wrote: >> >> Guys, >> >> I've been playing with reducers on and off for a while but have been >> frustrated because they don't seem to fit a particular usecase that I have >> in mind... specifically: getting as many associations into a hash-map as as >> I can in as short a time as possible. >> >> My understanding of the reason for this is that reducers practice a >> divide and conquer strategy. The incoming sequence is divided up. Each >> sub-sequence is reduced into a sub-result (possibly in parallel) and then >> the sub-results are combined into the the final outgoing result. >> >> Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a better way of combining two >> hash-maps other than to read each entry from one and create a new >> corresponding association in the other. This means that each recombination >> in the above process essentially repeats most of the work already performed >> in the previous reduction stage. >> >> Hash-sets are implemented via hash-maps, and simpler with which to >> demonstrate this problem: >> >> user=> (def a (doall (range 10000000))) >> #'user/a >> user=> (def b (doall (range 5000000 15000000))) >> #'user/b >> user=> (time (def c (into #{} a))) >> "Elapsed time: 6319.392669 msecs" >> #'user/c >> user=> (time (def d (into #{} b))) >> "Elapsed time: 5389.805233 msecs" >> #'user/d >> user=> (time (def e (into c d))) >> "Elapsed time: 8486.032191 msecs" >> #'user/e >> >> >> In the example above, you can see that the reduction into hash-sets of >> two overlapping lists of 10,000,000 elements takes 6.3 and 5.4 seconds. >> This stage can be carried out in parallel i.e. time elapsed for this stage >> would be 6.3 seconds - but we now have two hash-sets and we want one, so we >> have to combine them. >> >> >> user=> (time (def e (into c d))) >> "Elapsed time: 8486.032191 msecs" >> #'user/e >> >> As you can see, all the advantages of splitting the original sequence >> into 2 and processing the two halves in parallel are lost since the >> recombination or their results takes 8.5 seconds - more than we saved by >> doing the reduction in parallel. >> >> So, what can we do about it ? >> >> I had a look at the code for PersistentHashMap (PersistentHashSet uses >> PersistantHashMap internally). I realised that it was possible to "splice" >> together the internal structure of two hash maps into a single one without >> repeating most of the work required to build one from scratch. So, I had a >> go at implementing it: >> >> >> user=> (time (def f (clojure.lang.PersistentHashSet/splice c d))) >> "Elapsed time: 3052.690911 msecs" >> #'user/f >> >> and: >> >> user=> (= e f) >> true >> >> Whilst this is still adding 3 seconds to our time, that 3 seconds is half >> the time that we would have added had we executed the second reduction in >> serial, rather than in parallel. >> >> This means that we can now reduce large datasets into sets/maps more >> quickly in parallel than we can in serial :-) As an added benefit, because >> splice reuses as much of the internal structure of both inputs as possible, >> it's impact in terms of heap consumption and churn is less - although I >> think that a full implementation might add some Java-side code complexity. >> >> If you would like to give 'splice' a try out, you will need to clone my >> fork of clojure at github >> >> https://github.com/JulesGosnell/clojure >> >> Please let me know if you try out the code. I would be interested to hear >> if people think it is worth pursuing. >> >> I was also thinking that it should be possible to use a similar trick to >> quickly and cheaply split a map/set into [roughly] equal sized pieces >> (assuming an good hash distribution). This would enable the use of a >> map/set as an input sequence into the parallel reduction process outlined >> above. Currently, I believe that only a vector can be used in this way. It >> would be harder to arrange that 'count' could be implemented efficiently on >> these sub-maps/sets, but this is not important for the reduction process. >> >> BTW - benchmarks were run on a 3.2ghz Phenom II / clojure/master / >> openjdk-1.7.0_51 / Fedora 20 with min and max 4gb ram. >> >> regards, >> >> >> >> Jules >> >> >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. 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