From luke@stat.umn.edu  Fri Apr 12 20:44:35 2002
From: luke@stat.umn.edu (Luke Tierney)
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 14:44:35 -0500
Subject: [Rd] multi-threaded R current status?
In-Reply-To: <20020412152618.A9973@jessie.research.bell-labs.com>; from duncan@research.bell-labs.com on Fri, Apr 12, 2002 at 03:26:18PM -0400
References: <5429125E11E4D411AF7300805FE603A8040DE926@groexmbcr02.pfizer.com> <20020412152618.A9973@jessie.research.bell-labs.com>
Message-ID: <20020412144435.G8205@nokomis.stat.umn.edu>

Sounds like what you need (given that Python is involved with it's
global interpreter lock) is concurrent threads, not full parellelism.
That is at least feasible, though it's a non-trivial effort and it
remains to be seen if we have the resources to pull it off.  Full
parallelism at the R level is much harder; not clear it is
realistically feasible at all.

On the other hand, there are some simple things involving threading
vectorized arithmetic operations for speedup on multi=processors that
we are likely to look into fairly soon and that may turn out to be
useful.

luke

On Fri, Apr 12, 2002 at 03:26:18PM -0400, Duncan Temple Lang wrote:
> I plan to attack this in mid May unless Luke or others get there
> first.  As I have mentioned before, making the R engine reentrant
> and/or thread-safe will probably not be all that is needed for your
> purposes, and fixing the packages, especially those with native (C,
> C++ & Fortran) code is also necessary. That is why I have been working
> on a tool that aids in the task of removing the global variables.
> 
> Also, it may be prudent to prioritize an adequate security model in
> your application over allowing concurrent intrusions :-)
> 
>  D.
> 
> Warnes, Gregory R wrote:
> > 
> > Hi All,
> > 
> > What is the current status of removing the global variables etc that is
> > required to permit multi-threading R?
> > 
> > I'm developing a web application tool for/using R, python (www.python.org),
> > and Zope (www.zope.org), and it would be really convenient if I could use
> > something like RPy to communicate with several concurrent R sessions,
> > preferably within the same process space.  
> > 
> > -Greg
> > 
> > -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
> > r-devel mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html
> > Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe"
> > (in the "body", not the subject !)  To: r-devel-request@stat.math.ethz.ch
> > _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
> 
> -- 
> _______________________________________________________________
> 
> Duncan Temple Lang                duncan@research.bell-labs.com
> Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies    office: (908)582-3217
> 700 Mountain Avenue, Room 2C-259  fax:    (908)582-3340
> Murray Hill, NJ  07974-2070       
>          http://cm.bell-labs.com/stat/duncan
> -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
> r-devel mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html
> Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe"
> (in the "body", not the subject !)  To: r-devel-request@stat.math.ethz.ch
> _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._

-- 
Luke Tierney
University of Minnesota                      Phone:           612-625-7843
School of Statistics                         Fax:             612-624-8868
313 Ford Hall, 224 Church St. S.E.           email:      luke@stat.umn.edu
Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA                    WWW:  http://www.stat.umn.edu
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
r-devel mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html
Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe"
(in the "body", not the subject !)  To: r-devel-request@stat.math.ethz.ch
_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._


[Rd] multi-threaded R current status?
Luke Tierney