Map Reduce with F# agents

Question

After playing with F# agents I tried to do a map reduce using them.

The basic structure I use is:

• map supervisor which queues up all the work to do i

Answer 1

I like to use MailboxProcessor for the reduce part of the algorithm, and async block that's invoked with Async.Parallel for the map part. It makes things more explicit, giving you finer control over exception handling, timeouts, and cancellation.

The following code was designed with Brian's help, and with the help of his excellent F# block highlighting "F# Depth Colorizer" plug-in for VS2010.

This code is meant to pull RSS feeds from yahoo weather server in a map-reduce pattern. It demonstrates how we can control execution flow from the outside of actual algorithm.

fetchWeather is the map part, and mailboxLoop is the reduce part of the algorithm.

#r "System.Xml.Linq.dll"

#r "FSharp.PowerPack.dll"

open System
open System.Diagnostics
open System.IO
open System.Linq
open System.Net
open System.Xml.Linq

open Microsoft.FSharp.Control.WebExtensions 

type Weather (city, region, temperature) = class
   member x.City = city
   member x.Region = region
   member x.Temperature : int = temperature

   override this.ToString() =
      sprintf "%s, %s: %d F" this.City this.Region this.Temperature
end

type MessageForActor = 
   | ProcessWeather of Weather
   | ProcessError of int
   | GetResults of (Weather * Weather * Weather list) AsyncReplyChannel

let parseRss woeid (rssStream : Stream) =
   let xn str = XName.Get str
   let yweather elementName = XName.Get(elementName, "http://xml.weather.yahoo.com/ns/rss/1.0")

   let channel = (XDocument.Load rssStream).Descendants(xn "channel").First()
   let location   = channel.Element(yweather "location")
   let condition  = channel.Element(xn "item").Element(yweather "condition")

   //  If the RSS server returns error, condition XML element won't be available.
   if not(condition = null) then
      let temperature = Int32.Parse(condition.Attribute(xn "temp").Value)
      ProcessWeather(new Weather(
                    location.Attribute(xn "city").Value,
                    location.Attribute(xn "region").Value,
                    temperature))
   else
      ProcessError(woeid)

let fetchWeather (actor : MessageForActor MailboxProcessor) woeid =
   async {
      let rssAddress = sprintf "http://weather.yahooapis.com/forecastrss?w=%d&u=f" woeid
      let webRequest =  WebRequest.Create rssAddress
      use! response = webRequest.AsyncGetResponse()
      use responseStream = response.GetResponseStream()
      let weather = parseRss woeid responseStream
      //do! Async.Sleep 1000 // enable this line to see amplified timing that proves concurrent flow
      actor.Post(weather)
   }

let mailboxLoop initialCount =
   let chooseCityByTemperature op (x : Weather) (y : Weather) =
      if op x.Temperature y.Temperature then x else y

   let sortWeatherByCityAndState (weatherList : Weather list) =
      weatherList
      |> List.sortWith (fun x y -> x.City.CompareTo(y.City))
      |> List.sortWith (fun x y -> x.Region.CompareTo(y.Region))

   MailboxProcessor.Start(fun inbox ->
      let rec loop minAcc maxAcc weatherList remaining =
         async {
            let! message = inbox.Receive()
            let remaining = remaining - 1

            match message with
            | ProcessWeather weather ->
               let colderCity = chooseCityByTemperature (<) minAcc weather
               let warmerCity = chooseCityByTemperature (>) maxAcc weather
               return! loop colderCity warmerCity (weather :: weatherList) remaining
            | ProcessError woeid ->
               let errorWeather = new Weather(sprintf "Error with woeid=%d" woeid, "ZZ", 99999)
               return! loop minAcc maxAcc (errorWeather :: weatherList) remaining
            | GetResults replyChannel ->
               replyChannel.Reply(minAcc, maxAcc, sortWeatherByCityAndState weatherList)
         }

      let minValueInitial = new Weather("", "", Int32.MaxValue)
      let maxValueInitial = new Weather("", "", Int32.MinValue)
      loop minValueInitial maxValueInitial [] initialCount
      )

let RunSynchronouslyWithExceptionAndTimeoutHandlers computation =
   let timeout = 30000
   try
      Async.RunSynchronously(Async.Catch(computation), timeout)
      |> function Choice1Of2 answer               -> answer |> ignore
                | Choice2Of2 (except : Exception) -> printfn "%s" except.Message; printfn "%s" except.StackTrace; exit -4
   with
   | :? System.TimeoutException -> printfn "Timed out waiting for results for %d seconds!" <| timeout / 1000; exit -5

let main =
   // Should have script name, sync/async select, and at least one woeid
   if fsi.CommandLineArgs.Length < 3 then
      printfn "Expecting at least two arguments!"
      printfn "There were %d arguments" (fsi.CommandLineArgs.Length - 1)
      exit -1

   let woeids =
      try
         fsi.CommandLineArgs
         |> Seq.skip 2 // skip the script name and sync/async select
         |> Seq.map Int32.Parse
         |> Seq.toList
      with
      | except -> printfn "One of supplied arguments was not an integer: %s" except.Message; exit -2

   let actor = mailboxLoop woeids.Length

   let processWeatherItemsConcurrently woeids =
      woeids
      |> Seq.map (fetchWeather actor)
      |> Async.Parallel
      |> RunSynchronouslyWithExceptionAndTimeoutHandlers

   let processOneWeatherItem woeid =
      woeid
      |> fetchWeather actor
      |> RunSynchronouslyWithExceptionAndTimeoutHandlers

   let stopWatch = new Stopwatch()
   stopWatch.Start()
   match fsi.CommandLineArgs.[1].ToUpper() with
   | "C" -> printfn "Concurrent execution:  "; processWeatherItemsConcurrently woeids
   | "S" -> printfn "Synchronous execution: "; woeids |> Seq.iter processOneWeatherItem
   | _   -> printfn "Unexpected run options!"; exit -3

   let (min, max, weatherList) = actor.PostAndReply GetResults
   stopWatch.Stop()
   assert (weatherList.Length = woeids.Length)

   printfn "{"
   weatherList |> List.iter (printfn "   %O")
   printfn "}"
   printfn "Coldest place: %O" min
   printfn "Hottest place: %O" max
   printfn "Completed in %d millisec" stopWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds

main