How do I parallelize a simple Python loop?

Question

This is probably a trivial question, but how do I parallelize the following loop in python?

# setup output lists
output1 = list()
output2 = list()
output3 =          


        

Answer 1

I found joblib is very useful with me. Please see following example:

from joblib import Parallel, delayed
def yourfunction(k):   
    s=3.14*k*k
    print "Area of a circle with a radius ", k, " is:", s

element_run = Parallel(n_jobs=-1)(delayed(yourfunction)(k) for k in range(1,10))

n_jobs=-1: use all available cores

Answer 2

Have a look at this;

http://docs.python.org/library/queue.html

This might not be the right way to do it, but I'd do something like;

Actual code;

from multiprocessing import Process, JoinableQueue as Queue 

class CustomWorker(Process):
    def __init__(self,workQueue, out1,out2,out3):
        Process.__init__(self)
        self.input=workQueue
        self.out1=out1
        self.out2=out2
        self.out3=out3
    def run(self):
            while True:
                try:
                    value = self.input.get()
                    #value modifier
                    temp1,temp2,temp3 = self.calc_stuff(value)
                    self.out1.put(temp1)
                    self.out2.put(temp2)
                    self.out3.put(temp3)
                    self.input.task_done()
                except Queue.Empty:
                    return
                   #Catch things better here
    def calc_stuff(self,param):
        out1 = param * 2
        out2 = param * 4
        out3 = param * 8
        return out1,out2,out3
def Main():
    inputQueue = Queue()
    for i in range(10):
        inputQueue.put(i)
    out1 = Queue()
    out2 = Queue()
    out3 = Queue()
    processes = []
    for x in range(2):
          p = CustomWorker(inputQueue,out1,out2,out3)
          p.daemon = True
          p.start()
          processes.append(p)
    inputQueue.join()
    while(not out1.empty()):
        print out1.get()
        print out2.get()
        print out3.get()
if __name__ == '__main__':
    Main()

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

thanks @iuryxavier

from multiprocessing import Pool
from multiprocessing import cpu_count


def add_1(x):
    return x + 1

if __name__ == "__main__":
    pool = Pool(cpu_count())
    results = pool.map(add_1, range(10**12))
    pool.close()  # 'TERM'
    pool.join()   # 'KILL'

Answer 4

Let's say we have an async function

async def work_async(self, student_name: str, code: str, loop):
"""
Some async function
"""
    # Do some async procesing    

That needs to be run on a large array. Some attributes are being passed to the program and some are used from property of dictionary element in the array.

async def process_students(self, student_name: str, loop):
    market = sys.argv[2]
    subjects = [...] #Some large array
    batchsize = 5
    for i in range(0, len(subjects), batchsize):
        batch = subjects[i:i+batchsize]
        await asyncio.gather(*(self.work_async(student_name,
                                           sub['Code'],
                                           loop)
                       for sub in batch))

Answer 5

very simple example of parallel processing is

from multiprocessing import Process

output1 = list()
output2 = list()
output3 = list()

def yourfunction():
    for j in range(0, 10):
        # calc individual parameter value
        parameter = j * offset
        # call the calculation
        out1, out2, out3 = calc_stuff(parameter=parameter)

        # put results into correct output list
        output1.append(out1)
        output2.append(out2)
        output3.append(out3)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    p = Process(target=pa.yourfunction, args=('bob',))
    p.start()
    p.join()

Answer 6

There are a number of advantages to using Ray:

• You can parallelize over multiple machines in addition to multiple cores (with the same code).
• Efficient handling of numerical data through shared memory (and zero-copy serialization).
• High task throughput with distributed scheduling.
• Fault tolerance.

In your case, you could start Ray and define a remote function

import ray

ray.init()

@ray.remote(num_return_vals=3)
def calc_stuff(parameter=None):
    # Do something.
    return 1, 2, 3

and then invoke it in parallel

output1, output2, output3 = [], [], []

# Launch the tasks.
for j in range(10):
    id1, id2, id3 = calc_stuff.remote(parameter=j)
    output1.append(id1)
    output2.append(id2)
    output3.append(id3)

# Block until the results have finished and get the results.
output1 = ray.get(output1)
output2 = ray.get(output2)
output3 = ray.get(output3)

To run the same example on a cluster, the only line that would change would be the call to ray.init(). The relevant documentation can be found here.

Note that I'm helping to develop Ray.