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CoWork::Finish() can wait in a worker thread while there are jobs to do [message #47127]

Thu, 15 December 2016 21:30

busiek
Messages: 70
Registered: February 2011
Location: Poland

Member

Hi Mirek,

It is said that CoWork instances can be nested. Looking into the code I see that it is also possible to use CoWork in a job (i.e. in a worker thread). Therefore CoWork::Finish() can be called inside a worker thread. The current implementation of Finish() waits if there is no more jobs to take from the local queue of CoWork while not all local jobs are finished. This is a waste of resources because a worker should never wait while there are any global jobs to do from the pool. Why not implement CoWork::Finish() like that:

void CoWork::Finish() {
	Pool& p = GetPool();
	p.lock.Enter();
	while(todo) {
		if(!jobs.IsEmpty(1)) {
			LLOG("Finish: todo: " << todo << " (CoWork " << FormatIntHex(this) << ")");
			p.DoJob(*jobs.GetNext(1));
		} else if(is_worker && !p.jobs.IsEmpty()) {
			LLOG("Do global job while WaitForFinish (CoWork " << FormatIntHex(this) << ")");
			p.DoJob(*p.jobs.GetNext());
		} else if(is_worker)
			p.waiting_threads++;
			LLOG("Waiting for job in WaitForFinish");
			p.waitforjob.Wait(p.lock);
			LLOG("Waiting ended in WaitForFinish");
			p.waiting_threads--;
		} else {
			LLOG("WaitForFinish (CoWork " << FormatIntHex(this) << ")");
			waitforfinish.Wait(p.lock);
		}
	}
	p.lock.Leave();
	LLOG("CoWork " << FormatIntHex(this) << " finished");
}

?

The only problem is that a worker can wait on different conditional variables. If the worker waits on the global conditional variable (p.waitforjob) and some other worker finishes remaining jobs in local CoWork queue reducing todo to zero, the worker will not be waked up since the other worker signals waitforfinish. Also removing the entire "else if(is_worker)" block and waiting only on waitforfinish is a bad solution either since if a new job is scheduled by PushJob() the worker will not be waked up. Therefore more complicated code is needed. I attach a patch with a proposition. Simply one has to track all waiting workers in Finish() which I call "waiting masters" and singal one of them in PushJob().

Jakub

Attachment: 0001-CoWork-Finish-don-t-wait-in-a-worker-thread.patch
(Size: 2.56KB, Downloaded 236 times)

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