139 lines
		
	
	
		
			6.8 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			HTML
		
	
	
	
	
	
		
		
			
		
	
	
			139 lines
		
	
	
		
			6.8 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			HTML
		
	
	
	
	
	
| 
								 | 
							
								<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<html>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<!-- This manual is for FFTW
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								(version 3.3.10, 10 December 2020).
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								Copyright (C) 2003 Matteo Frigo.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								Copyright (C) 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								preserved on all copies.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								permission notice identical to this one.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions,
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								approved by the Free Software Foundation. -->
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<!-- Created by GNU Texinfo 6.7, http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/ -->
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<head>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<title>Thread safety (FFTW 3.3.10)</title>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<meta name="description" content="Thread safety (FFTW 3.3.10)">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<meta name="keywords" content="Thread safety (FFTW 3.3.10)">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<meta name="resource-type" content="document">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<meta name="distribution" content="global">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<meta name="Generator" content="makeinfo">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<link href="index.html" rel="start" title="Top">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<link href="Concept-Index.html" rel="index" title="Concept Index">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<link href="Multi_002dthreaded-FFTW.html" rel="up" title="Multi-threaded FFTW">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<link href="Distributed_002dmemory-FFTW-with-MPI.html" rel="next" title="Distributed-memory FFTW with MPI">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<link href="How-Many-Threads-to-Use_003f.html" rel="prev" title="How Many Threads to Use?">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<style type="text/css">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<!--
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								a.summary-letter {text-decoration: none}
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								blockquote.indentedblock {margin-right: 0em}
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								div.display {margin-left: 3.2em}
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								div.example {margin-left: 3.2em}
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								div.lisp {margin-left: 3.2em}
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								kbd {font-style: oblique}
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								pre.display {font-family: inherit}
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								pre.format {font-family: inherit}
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								pre.menu-comment {font-family: serif}
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								pre.menu-preformatted {font-family: serif}
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								span.nolinebreak {white-space: nowrap}
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								span.roman {font-family: initial; font-weight: normal}
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								span.sansserif {font-family: sans-serif; font-weight: normal}
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								ul.no-bullet {list-style: none}
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								-->
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</style>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</head>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<body lang="en">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<span id="Thread-safety"></span><div class="header">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<p>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								Previous: <a href="How-Many-Threads-to-Use_003f.html" accesskey="p" rel="prev">How Many Threads to Use?</a>, Up: <a href="Multi_002dthreaded-FFTW.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Multi-threaded FFTW</a>   [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Concept-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</div>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<hr>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<span id="Thread-safety-1"></span><h3 class="section">5.4 Thread safety</h3>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<span id="index-threads-1"></span>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<span id="index-OpenMP-3"></span>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<span id="index-thread-safety-1"></span>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<p>Users writing multi-threaded programs (including OpenMP) must concern
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								themselves with the <em>thread safety</em> of the libraries they
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								use—that is, whether it is safe to call routines in parallel from
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								multiple threads.  FFTW can be used in such an environment, but some
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								care must be taken because the planner routines share data
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								(e.g. wisdom and trigonometric tables) between calls and plans.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</p>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<p>The upshot is that the only thread-safe routine in FFTW is
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<code>fftw_execute</code> (and the new-array variants thereof).  All other routines
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								(e.g. the planner) should only be called from one thread at a time.  So,
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								for example, you can wrap a semaphore lock around any calls to the
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								planner; even more simply, you can just create all of your plans from
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								one thread.  We do not think this should be an important restriction
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								(FFTW is designed for the situation where the only performance-sensitive
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								code is the actual execution of the transform), and the benefits of
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								shared data between plans are great.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</p>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<p>Note also that, since the plan is not modified by <code>fftw_execute</code>,
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								it is safe to execute the <em>same plan</em> in parallel by multiple
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								threads.  However, since a given plan operates by default on a fixed
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								array, you need to use one of the new-array execute functions (see <a href="New_002darray-Execute-Functions.html">New-array Execute Functions</a>) so that different threads compute the transform of different data.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</p>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<p>(Users should note that these comments only apply to programs using
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								shared-memory threads or OpenMP.  Parallelism using MPI or forked processes
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								involves a separate address-space and global variables for each process,
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								and is not susceptible to problems of this sort.)
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</p>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<p>The FFTW planner is intended to be called from a single thread.  If you
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								really must call it from multiple threads, you are expected to grab
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								whatever lock makes sense for your application, with the understanding
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								that you may be holding that lock for a long time, which is undesirable.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</p>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<p>Neither strategy works, however, in the following situation.  The
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								“application” is structured as a set of “plugins” which are unaware
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								of each other, and for whatever reason the “plugins” cannot coordinate
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								on grabbing the lock.  (This is not a technical problem, but an
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								organizational one.  The “plugins” are written by independent agents,
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								and from the perspective of each plugin’s author, each plugin is using
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								FFTW correctly from a single thread.)  To cope with this situation,
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								starting from FFTW-3.3.5, FFTW supports an API to make the planner
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								thread-safe:
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</p>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<div class="example">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<pre class="example">void fftw_make_planner_thread_safe(void);
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</pre></div>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<span id="index-fftw_005fmake_005fplanner_005fthread_005fsafe"></span>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<p>This call operates by brute force: It just installs a hook that wraps a
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								lock (chosen by us) around all planner calls.  So there is no magic and
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								you get the worst of all worlds.  The planner is still single-threaded,
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								but you cannot choose which lock to use.  The planner still holds the
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								lock for a long time, but you cannot impose a timeout on lock
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								acquisition.  As of FFTW-3.3.5 and FFTW-3.3.6, this call does not work
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								when using OpenMP as threading substrate.  (Suggestions on what to do
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								about this bug are welcome.)  <em>Do not use
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<code>fftw_make_planner_thread_safe</code> unless there is no other choice,</em>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								such as in the application/plugin situation.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</p><hr>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<div class="header">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<p>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								Previous: <a href="How-Many-Threads-to-Use_003f.html" accesskey="p" rel="prev">How Many Threads to Use?</a>, Up: <a href="Multi_002dthreaded-FFTW.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Multi-threaded FFTW</a>   [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Concept-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</div>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</body>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</html>
							 |