Sequence¶

A sequence is a set of bound tasks. It represents the graph to execute for each new frame (= new stream). When a sequence is built, the tasks execution order is fixed. Thus, for each frame, the graph is executed following a fixed "sequence" of tasks.

A sequence is a C++ object of the aff3ct::runtime::Sequence class. The following sections try to give an overview of the most important attributes and methods to facilitate the code understanding.

Main Attributes¶

size_t n_threads;

The number of threads that are executing the sequence.

std::vector<tools::Digraph_node<runtime::Sub_sequence>*> sequences;

Vector of sub-sequences of the main sequence (one per thread).

std::vector<size_t>                      firsts_tasks_id;
std::vector<size_t>                      lasts_tasks_id;
std::vector<std::vector<runtime::Task*>> firsts_tasks;
std::vector<std::vector<runtime::Task*>> lasts_tasks;

Vectors used to get the firsts and lasts tasks of the sequence. The first tasks are the ones without parents, and the last are the ones without children in the constructed directed graph.

std::vector<std::vector<module::Module*>> all_modules;

Vector of modules contained within the sequence.

Main Methods¶

void exec();

This is the public method that runs the sequence in loop. Other variants exist where it is possible to give a stop condition function.

void gen_processes(const bool no_copy_mode = false);

This function is one of the most important of the sequence class, it is called by the Sequence constructor. Its main purpose is to parse the sub-sequence graph and to perform some operations that can modify the user bindings. Additionally, some tasks can be optimized and/or interpreted as a DSEL keyword.

Warning

Before reading the following paragraph you should be familiar with the Adaptor and Switcher modules.

Here is a list of the transformations that are performed during the gen_processes method:

push & pull tasks (from Adaptor module): as explained in the adaptor's section, tasks change their dataptr when they get the new buffers from the inter-stage pool, the new pointer needs to be updated for each socket bound to the old one. This behavior is added through a process (nothing to do with OS processes) that encapsulates push and pull tasks. This process is triggered each time there is a pull or push task execution in the sequence.
commute & select tasks (from Switcher module): these two tasks are used to select which path to flow for the execution, when a path is selected the bound sockets need to update their dataptr to follow the right one. Same as before, a dedicated process is created and triggered.
Other tasks: a dumb process will be created for each task and it will only call its corresponding task.

void explore_thread_rec(Socket* socket, std::vector<runtime::Socket*>& list_fwd);

The function is called by gen_processes to get all the bound sockets (next) of the modified one, if the encountered socket is of type forward the function is called recursively on this new socket (see the Forward socket and pipeline section). This call is performed once at sequence build.

Warning

This function is no longer a method of the runtime::Sequence class, it is now integrated as an anonymous (= lambda) function in the gen_processes method. This is because explore_thread_rec is only used in gen_processes.

void explore_thread_rec_reverse(runtime::Socket* socket, std::vector<runtime::Socket*>& list_fwd);

The function does the same thing as the previous one, but in the other sense (previous).

Warning

This function is no longer a method of the runtime::Sequence class, it is now integrated as an anonymous (= lambda) function in the gen_processes method. This is because explore_thread_rec_reverse is only used in gen_processes.

Sub-sequence¶

When control flow tasks are introduced into a sequence, the execution is not only defined by the tasks binding but also by their output sockets. For this purpose, tasks are grouped into sub-sequences. Sub-sequences are organized in a directed graph with two nodes designated as begin and end, respectively. This graph is recursively built during a sequence initialization from the first task and going from bound output/forward socket to bound input/forward socket. When a control flow task (select or commute) is reached, a new control flow node is created and new children nodes for each of its paths. Only a single of those paths can be taken during execution, hence why they are referred to as exclusive paths. This also means that a sequence with no control flow task will always have a single sub-sequence, because it has a single path.

Upon execution the sequence will iterate over its sub-sequences and execute every task they contain, if one of those tasks happens to be a commute it will select the children node designated by its path attribute, thus branching in the execution.

aff3ct::runtime::Sub_sequence (not to be confused with aff3ct::module::Subsequence!) main attributes are described in the following section.

Main Attributes¶

runtime::subseq_t type;

The sub-sequence types can be: STD, COMMUTE and SELECT. This type is used by the _exec() method to determine which exclusive path to take during execution.

std::vector<std::function<const int*()>> processes;

Whenever _exec() reaches a new sub-sequence it executes every function contained in this list, there is one for each task in the sub-sequence. Refer to gen_processes() to understand how they are created and what they contain.

std::vector<size_t> tasks_id;

The ids of the tasks the processes were generated from, tasks_id[0] is the id of the task that processes[0] was made with.

size_t id;

The sub-sequence's id.

std::vector<std::vector<std::vector<runtime::Socket*>>> rebind_sockets;
std::vector<std::vector<std::vector<void*>>> rebind_dataptrs;

This two vectors are used within the gen_process() method to save the sockets and their dataptr to update during the runtime rebinding.

Digraph Node¶

Sub-sequences make up a directed graph. Whenever a sub-sequence is accessed, it is through this class (aff3ct::tools::Digraph_node) as sub-sequences themselves do not contain information regarding the graph.

Main Attributes¶

std::vector<tools::Digraph_node<T>*> parents;
std::vector<tools::Digraph_node<T>*> children;

The nodes pointing to this node and the ones it points to respectively.

T* contents; /*!< Pointer to the node contents, could be anything. */

The contents of the node, usually a sub-sequence.