@hackage haskell-cnc0.1.3.200

Library for parallel programming in the Intel Concurrent Collections paradigm.

Intel Concurrent Collections for Haskell

Author: Ryan Newton, Copyright 2009-2010

This directory contains an implementation of the Intel Concurrent Collections programming model (CnC) for Haskell. It works only with GHC.

If you are looking in this directory, you are probably not using this package through cabal. Currently, it contains a Makefile and other scripts that are redundant with the cabal file and will be removed in the future.

Quick Start:

On Unix(ish) systems with a Bash shell, try this:

source install_environment_vars.sh runcnc examples/primes.hs

You can also rerun the primes executable directly after that (primes.exe). To run with a particular number of threads, say 8, try: ./primes.exe +RTS -N8


Installing Haskell CnC

You need a working installation of "ghc" and "cabal". The easiest way to accomplish this is with the Haskell Platform. With those prerequisites you should be able to install Haskell CnC directly from the web with:

cabal install haskell-cnc

Building from source, including installing all dependencies:

git clone git://github.com/rrnewton/Haskell-CnC.git

cd Haskell-CnC cabal update cabal install

That will cause cabal to install a number of packages from "Hackage" and then build Haskell CnC. If any of these dependencies break (don't build with your version of GHC).

If you are running as root you may have an easier time with:

cabal install --global

Otherwise make sure that ~/.cabal/bin/ is in your path.

cabal install happy cabal install

      ------------------------------------
      A GUIDE TO CABAL DEPENDENCY PROBLEMS
      ------------------------------------

Because the Haskell CnC package exists in an ecosystem of ever-changing packages and compiler versions (cabal), and itself has many dependencies. Often these will get broken. However, the intrepid hacker can usually work around most problems. Here, I will try to make an account of the hacks that are needed to overcome obstacles.

[2011.02.14] DRBG dependency broke on hackage due to tagged-0.2 Fixed now.


Running Haskell CnC, Method (1): Normal method.

CnC for Haskell can be used as a regular Haskell module.
Look at "hello_world.hs" in the examples directory.


Running Haskell CnC, Method (2): Inlined library.

For testing purposes, Haskell CnC can inline the library and enable the user to choose between different scheduling options and runtime parameters statically. Under this methodology the "runcnc" script is used to compile and execute CnC programs. The following environment variable must be set:

HASKELLCNC -- should be set to the install directory. (Sourcing install_environment_vars.sh is one way to accomplish this.)

Preprocessor variables:

MEMOIZE Turns on memoization of steps over tags. This is frequently done on a per-program basis using "#define MEMOIZE".

REPEAT_PUT_ALLOWED Are multiple put's into an item collection with the same tag valid or an error?

CNC_VARIANT Which implementation? 'pure' or 'io'? CNC_SCHEDULER Which scheduler within that implementation? (1-N) These can also be set as environment variables when using runcnc.

INCLUDEMETHOD ignore this, it's internal and is used for switching between schedulers-as-modules or schedulers-as-includes


Testing and Benchmarking

Notes on running a full benchmark suite:

To compile with profiling support (for threadscope)

GHC_DEFAULT_FLAGS="-eventlog" NORUN=1 runcnc mandel.hs

To run and generate a .eventlog:

./mandel.exe 300 300 80000 +RTS -ls -N31

Will generate mandel.exe.eventlog