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orx-concurrent-vec

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A thread-safe, efficient and lock-free vector allowing concurrent grow, read and update operations.

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# orx-concurrent-vec

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A thread-safe, efficient and lock-free vector allowing concurrent grow, read and update operations.

## Safe Concurrent Grow & Read & Update

[`ConcurrentVec`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html) provides safe api for concurrent **grow** & **read** & **update** operations (see also [GrowReadUpdate.md](https://github.com/orxfun/orx-concurrent-vec/blob/main/docs/GrowReadUpdate.md) and examples [metrics_collection](https://github.com/orxfun/orx-concurrent-vec/blob/main/examples/metrics_collection.rs), [random_actions](https://github.com/orxfun/orx-concurrent-vec/blob/main/examples/random_actions.rs) and [concurrent_grow_read_update](https://github.com/orxfun/orx-concurrent-vec/blob/main/examples/concurrent_grow_read_update.rs)).

### ① Grow

ConcurrentVec is designed having safe & high performance growth in focus. Elements can be added to the vector using [`push`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.push) and [`extend`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.extend) methods.

```rust ignore
let idx = vec.push("foo".to_string());

// extend guarantees that all elements of the iterator will be written consecutively
let begin_idx = vec.extend((0..42).map(|i| i.to_string()));
```

These methods return the positions in the vector that the values are written to, since otherwise it is not trivially possible to get this information in a concurrent program. For similar reasons, there exist also [`push_for_idx`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.push_for_idx) and [`extend_for_idx`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.extend_for_idx) variants.

### ② Read

In order to prevent race conditions, safe methods of the concurrent vec do not return `&T` or `&mut T` references. Instead, `vec.get(i)` and `vec[i]` provides a reference to the i-th [`ConcurrentElement`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentElement.html) of the vector. A concurrent element then provides us with thread-safe read and write access to the underlying value.

For instance, we can use the value of the i-th element of the concurrent vec as follows:

```rust ignore
vec[i].map(|x| println!("{}", x));  // just do something with the value
let double = vec[i].map(|x| x * 2); // or map it to another value
```

When possible and makes sense, we might as well get the clone or copy of the value:

```rust ignore
let clone: Option<String> = vec.get_cloned(i); // or: vec[i].cloned();
```

#### Read via Iterators

Similar to *iter* on a slice, concurrent vec's [`iter`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.iter) provides an iterator yielding references to concurrent elements of the vec.

Notice that the iterator yields `&ConcurrentElement`, and then we need to use its thread-safe methods (*map* here) to do something with the values. For common use cases like these, there exist shorthands such as:

### ③ Update

Since `ConcurrentElement` provides both read and write access, *get* (or access via index) suffices and *get_mut* is not required.

We can update the value of an element depending on its previous value.

```rust ignore
vec[i].update(|x| {
    match *x < 100 {
        true => *x += 1,
        false => *x = 0,
    }
});
```

Alternatively, we can set or replace its value.

```rust ignore
vec[i].set(String::from("foo"));

let old_value = vec[i].replace(String::from("bar"));
assert_eq!(old_value.as_str(), "foo");
```

#### Updating via Iterators

We do not need *iter_mut* since `ConcurrentElement` allows mutating the elements.

```rust ignore
// double all values
for elem in vec.iter() {
    elem.update(|x| *x *= 2);
}

// set all values to 42
vec.iter().for_each(|elem| elem.set(42));

// set all values to 42 and collect the old ones
let old_values: Vec<_> = vec.iter().map(|elem| elem.replace(42)).collect();
```

## Concurrent Slices

Similar to the standard vec, a concurrent vec can be sliced into concurrent slices using [`slice(range)`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.slice) method. Resulting slices can of course be further sliced. A [`ConcurrentSlice`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentSlice.html) has all functionalities of the concurrent vec except for the growth methods.

```rust ignore
use orx_concurrent_vec::*;

let vec: ConcurrentVec<_> = (0..42).into_iter().collect();

let a = vec.slice(..21);
let b = vec.slice(21..);

// or
let (a, b) = vec.split_at(21);

assert_eq!(a.len(), 21);
assert_eq!(b[0].copied(), 21);
```

Slices are useful in a concurrent program to limit the access of certain actors to a particular region of the data. Methods such as [`split_at`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.split_at) and [`chunks`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.chunks) are particularly helpful for this purpose.

## (Partially) Unsafe Api

`ConcurrentVec` aims to provide an extensive set of vec functionalities while providing thread-safety via access through the concurrent element. However, it also provides unsafe methods to provide references to the elements. These methods and references can be used safely under certain circumstances.

A common scenario where we do not need the checked access occurs when we use **grow** and **read** methods, but not **update** methods. In such a case, we can directly access the values through `&T` references or hold on to these references (or pointers) throughout the lifetime of the vector. This is safe due to the following:
* the concurrent vector will never allow access until the element is completely initialized, and
* the references will remain valid as long as the vec is not dropped due to the pinned element guarantees of the underlying [`PinnedVec`](https://crates.io/crates/orx-pinned-vec) storage.

References and pointers can be obtained using [`get_ref`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.get_ref), [`get_mut`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.get_mut), [`get_raw`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.get_raw), [`get_raw_mut`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.get_raw_mut), [`iter_ref`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.iter_ref) and [`iter_mut`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.iter_mut) methods.

Details can be read in [GrowRead.md](https://github.com/orxfun/orx-concurrent-vec/blob/main/docs/GrowRead.md) and an example safe usage can be found in [concurrent_grow_read_noupdate](https://github.com/orxfun/orx-concurrent-vec/blob/main/examples/concurrent_grow_read_noupdate.rs).

## Current Limitations

Currently, `ConcurrentVec` cannot change positions of existing elements concurrently, [`swap`](https://docs.rs/orx-concurrent-vec/latest/orx_concurrent_vec/struct.ConcurrentVec.html#method.swap) being the only exception:
* `clear` requires a `&mut self` reference.
* methods such as `remove`, `insert` and `pop` are not yet implemented.

## Performance

### Impact of Lock-Free

We can replace `ConcurrentVec<T>` with `Arc<Mutex<Vec<T>>>` which would provide us with entire functionality of the standard vector. However, especially in performance critical scenarios, locking an entire vector for each access might not be a good strategy.

> *A drop-in replacement for `Arc<Mutex<Vec<T>>>` in shared owner cases would have been `Arc<ConcurrentVec<T>>`, while in many scenarios `&ConcurrentVec<T>` would suffice to share the mutable state. However, it is important to note the difference in clone behavior; unlike `Arc::clone`, `ConcurrentVec::clone()` clones the underlying data.*

The [updater_reader](https://github.com/orxfun/orx-concurrent-vec/blob/main/examples/updater_reader.rs) example aims to demonstrate the impact of locking in such a scenario. In the example, we create and fill a vector and share it with two types of actors, updaters & readers:
* We spawn `num_updaters` threads, each of which continuously draws an index, and updates the element at the given index.
* We spawn `num_readers` threads, each of which continuously draws an index, and reads the value of the element at the given index.

All threads run for a pre-set amount of time. At the end of the experiment, we analyze the number of read and update operations we could perform in the allowed duration.

```bash
cargo run --release --example updater_reader -- --help
cargo run --release --example updater_reader -- --len=10000 --num-readers=8 --num-updaters=8 --duration-seconds=10
```

In the benchmark, we fix the number of updater threads to 4 and change the number of reader threads between 2 and 16.
* With 2 reader threads, we observe that lock-free ConcurrentVec is able to perform four times more operations than arc-mutex-vec.
* As the number of reader threads increases, total number of operations we manage to perform actually decreases with arc-mutex-vec. The heavier the load, the more drastic the impact of locks.
* With ConcurrentVec, on the other hand, number of operations increases as we add more readers. Further, the relation is close to linear. In other words, the benefit of adding a new reader thread remains close to constant.

### Growth Performance

As mentioned, `ConcurrentVec` aims high performance concurrent growth. Therefore, certain design decisions are taken to enable safe `extend` method in order to overcome the **false sharing** problem.

> [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_sharing): *When a system participant attempts to periodically access data that is not being altered by another party, but that data shares a cache block with data that is being altered, the caching protocol may force the first participant to reload the whole cache block despite a lack of logical necessity.*

Described problem can easily be experienced when multiple writers are concurrently pushing elements to the vector. We can avoid this problem by letting each writer ***extend the vector by multiple consecutive elements***; hence, making it unlikely that the cache blocks being accessed and altered by different threads will overlap. Furthermore, growth in batches has the advantage of requiring fewer atomic updates, and hence, reducing the overhead of concurrency.

The document [ConcurrentGrowthBenchmark.md](https://github.com/orxfun/orx-concurrent-vec/blob/main/docs/ConcurrentGrowthBenchmark.md) focuses specifically on the concurrent growth performance of `ConcurrentVec` and reports results of the benchmarks. In summary:

* `ConcurrentVec` is in general performant in concurrent growth.
* Using `extend` rather than `push` provides further significant performance improvements.
* There is not a significant difference between extending by batches of 64 elements or batches of 65536 elements. This is helpful since we do not need a well tuned number. A batch size large enough to avoid overlaps seems to be just fine.

Of course, not all scenarios allow to extend in batches. However, whenever possible, it is preferable due to potential significant performance improvements.

## Opt-in Features

* **std**: This is a no-std crate by default, and hence, "std" feature needs to be included when necessary.
* **serde**: ConcurrentVec implements `Serialize` and `Deserialize` traits; the "serde" feature needs to be added when required. You may find de-serialization examples in the corresponding [test file](https://github.com/orxfun/orx-concurrent-vec/blob/main/tests/serde.rs).

## Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you notice an error, have a question or think something could be added or improved, please open an [issue](https://github.com/orxfun/orx-concurrent-vec/issues/new) or create a PR.

## License

Dual-licensed under [Apache 2.0](LICENSE-APACHE) or [MIT](LICENSE-MIT).

orx-concurrent-vec

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