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I'm very new to Erlang and I'm currently reading Joe Armstrong's book, chapter 'concurrent programming'. I'm trying to run a list of processes to calculate if a number is a prime (naive method). But my code runs as if there was no processes. Both methods have the same duration. Where am I wrong ?

shell.erl:

c(prime).

%a list of primes
NUMS=[102950143,102950143,102950143,102950143,102950143].

%time start
NOW1=now().
io:fwrite("Monothread~n").

%for each number test if it is a prime
lists:foreach( fun(N)->
    RESULT=prime:is_prime(N),
    io:fwrite("Result N=~p ~n",[RESULT])
    end, NUMS).
%display the duration
io:fwrite("Duration N=~p ~n",[timer:now_diff(now(),NOW1)/1.0e6]).

%time start
NOW2=now().
io:fwrite("Multithread~n").
%for each number, spawn a new process and test if it is a prime
lists:foreach( fun(N)->ProcId = prime:start(),
    io:fwrite("Calculating : procId=~p N=~p ~n",[ProcId,N]),
    RESULT=prime:is_prime(ProcId,N),
    io:fwrite("Result N=~p ~n",[RESULT])
    end, NUMS).
%display the duration   
io:fwrite("Duration N=~p ~n",[timer:now_diff(now(),NOW2)/1.0e6]).

halt().

file prime.erl:

-module(prime).
-export([start/0,is_prime/1,is_prime/2]).
%run the forever_function
start()->spawn(fun forever_function/0).

%catch the queries
forever_function()->
    receive
        { From,Number} -> From! is_prime(self(),2,Number),
        forever_function()
    end.

%monothreaded function
is_prime(Number)->is_prime(self(),2,Number).

%multithreaded function
is_prime(ProcessID,Number)->
    ProcessID ! {self(),Number},
    receive
        RESULT->RESULT
    end.

%recursive function scanning all the numbers from 2 to Number
is_prime(ProcessID,Div,Number)->
    if
        Div =:= Number -> {{number,Number},{prime,true}};
        Number rem Div =:= 0 -> {{number,Number},{prime,false}};
        true-> is_prime(ProcessID,Div+1,Number)
    end.

Thanks,

Pierre

4

1 回答 1

12

在您的 lists:foreach 调用第二个块中，您正在调用RESULT=prime:is_prime(ProcId,N)，它正在执行receive结果。因此，您正在生成一个进程，然后等待它完成，直到生成下一个进程。这就是为什么它需要与单线程方法相同的时间：两种方式，你一次只做一个。

相反，您需要首先生成所有进程（使用类似lists:map跟踪所有 PID 的方法），然后在单独的步骤中等待结果。请注意，这意味着您必须将ProcessID ! {self(),Number}零件与receive零件分开，以便可以在第一步中完成，否则您只会产生一堆空闲进程。

所以，像：

Pids = lists:map( fun(N)-> ProcId = prime:start(N),
    io:fwrite("Calculating : procId=~p N=~p ~n",[ProcId,N]),
    ProcId end, NUMS).
lists:foreach( fun(ProcId) -> {N,RESULT}=prime:is_prime(ProcId),
    io:fwrite("Result procId=~p N=~p Result=~p ~n", [ProcId,N,RESULT]) end, Pids).

start(N)->spawn(?MODULE, forever_function, [N]).

forever_function(Number)->
    Result = is_prime(self(),2,Number),
    receive
        { From, get_result } -> From! {Number,Result},
        % unnecessary since we never call this Pid again, but do it anyway :)
        forever_function()
        % could also add more cases here to set the number
        % or even do a one-shot function like before
    end.

%multithreaded function
is_prime(ProcessID)->
    ProcessID ! {self(),get_result},
    receive
        RESULT->RESULT
    end.

注意：这是未经测试的，因此可能需要一些调整。

于 2009-12-06T14:24:59.507 回答