Parallel Merge Sort in Scala - multithreading

Question

I have been trying to implement parallel merge sort in Scala. But with 8 cores, using .sorted is still about twice as fast.
edit:
I rewrote most of the code to minimize object creation. Now it runs about as fast as the .sorted
Input file with 1.2M integers:
1.333580 seconds (my implementation)
1.439293 seconds (.sorted)
How should I parallelize this?
New implementation
object Mergesort extends App
{
//=====================================================================================================================
// UTILITY
implicit object comp extends Ordering[Any] {
def compare(a: Any, b: Any) = {
(a, b) match {
case (a: Int, b: Int) => a compare b
case (a: String, b: String) => a compare b
case _ => 0
}
}
}
//=====================================================================================================================
// MERGESORT
val THRESHOLD = 30
def inssort[A](a: Array[A], left: Int, right: Int): Array[A] = {
for (i <- (left+1) until right) {
var j = i
val item = a(j)
while (j > left && comp.lt(item,a(j-1))) {
a(j) = a(j-1)
j -= 1
}
a(j) = item
}
a
}
def mergesort_merge[A](a: Array[A], temp: Array[A], left: Int, right: Int, mid: Int) : Array[A] = {
var i = left
var j = right
while (i < mid) { temp(i) = a(i); i+=1; }
while (j > mid) { temp(i) = a(j-1); i+=1; j-=1; }
i = left
j = right-1
var k = left
while (k < right) {
if (comp.lt(temp(i), temp(j))) { a(k) = temp(i); i+=1; k+=1; }
else { a(k) = temp(j); j-=1; k+=1; }
}
a
}
def mergesort_split[A](a: Array[A], temp: Array[A], left: Int, right: Int): Array[A] = {
if (right-left == 1) a
if ((right-left) > THRESHOLD) {
val mid = (left+right)/2
mergesort_split(a, temp, left, mid)
mergesort_split(a, temp, mid, right)
mergesort_merge(a, temp, left, right, mid)
}
else
inssort(a, left, right)
}
def mergesort[A: ClassTag](a: Array[A]): Array[A] = {
val temp = new Array[A](a.size)
mergesort_split(a, temp, 0, a.size)
}
Previous implementation
Input file with 1.2M integers:
4.269937 seconds (my implementation)
1.831767 seconds (.sorted)
What sort of tricks there are to make it faster and cleaner?
object Mergesort extends App
{
//=====================================================================================================================
// UTILITY
val StartNano = System.nanoTime
def dbg(msg: String) = println("%05d DBG ".format(((System.nanoTime - StartNano)/1e6).toInt) + msg)
def time[T](work: =>T) = {
val start = System.nanoTime
val res = work
println("%f seconds".format((System.nanoTime - start)/1e9))
res
}
implicit object comp extends Ordering[Any] {
def compare(a: Any, b: Any) = {
(a, b) match {
case (a: Int, b: Int) => a compare b
case (a: String, b: String) => a compare b
case _ => 0
}
}
}
//=====================================================================================================================
// MERGESORT
def merge[A](left: List[A], right: List[A]): Stream[A] = (left, right) match {
case (x :: xs, y :: ys) if comp.lteq(x, y) => x #:: merge(xs, right)
case (x :: xs, y :: ys) => y #:: merge(left, ys)
case _ => if (left.isEmpty) right.toStream else left.toStream
}
def sort[A](input: List[A], length: Int): List[A] = {
if (length < 100) return input.sortWith(comp.lt)
input match {
case Nil | List(_) => input
case _ =>
val middle = length / 2
val (left, right) = input splitAt middle
merge(sort(left, middle), sort(right, middle + length%2)).toList
}
}
def msort[A](input: List[A]): List[A] = sort(input, input.length)
//=====================================================================================================================
// PARALLELIZATION
//val cores = Runtime.getRuntime.availableProcessors
//dbg("Detected %d cores.".format(cores))
//lazy implicit val ec = ExecutionContext.fromExecutorService(Executors.newFixedThreadPool(cores))
def futuremerge[A](fa: Future[List[A]], fb: Future[List[A]])(implicit order: Ordering[A], ec: ExecutionContext) =
{
for {
a <- fa
b <- fb
} yield merge(a, b).toList
}
def parallel_msort[A](input: List[A], length: Int)(implicit order: Ordering[A]): Future[List[A]] = {
val middle = length / 2
val (left, right) = input splitAt middle
if(length > 500) {
val fl = parallel_msort(left, middle)
val fr = parallel_msort(right, middle + length%2)
futuremerge(fl, fr)
}
else {
Future(msort(input))
}
}
//=====================================================================================================================
// MAIN
val results = time({
val src = Source.fromFile("in.txt").getLines
val header = src.next.split(" ").toVector
val lines = if (header(0) == "i") src.map(_.toInt).toList else src.toList
val f = parallel_msort(lines, lines.length)
Await.result(f, concurrent.duration.Duration.Inf)
})
println("Sorted as comparison...")
val sorted_src = Source.fromFile(input_folder+"in.txt").getLines
sorted_src.next
time(sorted_src.toList.sorted)
val writer = new PrintWriter("out.txt", "UTF-8")
try writer.print(results.mkString("\n"))
finally writer.close
}

Answer 1

My answer is probably going to be a bit long, but i hope that it will be useful for both you and me.
So, first question is: "how scala is doing sorting for a List?" Let's have a look at the code from scala repo!
def sorted[B >: A](implicit ord: Ordering[B]): Repr = {
val len = this.length
val b = newBuilder
if (len == 1) b ++= this
else if (len > 1) {
b.sizeHint(len)
val arr = new Array[AnyRef](len) // Previously used ArraySeq for more compact but slower code
var i = 0
for (x <- this) {
arr(i) = x.asInstanceOf[AnyRef]
i += 1
}
java.util.Arrays.sort(arr, ord.asInstanceOf[Ordering[Object]])
i = 0
while (i < arr.length) {
b += arr(i).asInstanceOf[A]
i += 1
}
}
b.result()
}
So what the hell is going on here? Long story short: with java. Everything else is just size justification and casting. Basically this is the line which defines it:
java.util.Arrays.sort(arr, ord.asInstanceOf[Ordering[Object]])
Let's go one level deeper into JDK sources:
public static <T> void sort(T[] a, Comparator<? super T> c) {
if (c == null) {
sort(a);
} else {
if (LegacyMergeSort.userRequested)
legacyMergeSort(a, c);
else
TimSort.sort(a, 0, a.length, c, null, 0, 0);
}
}
legacyMergeSort is nothing but single threaded implementation of merge sort algorithm.
The next question is: "what is TimSort.sort and when do we use it?"
To my best knowledge default value for this property is false, which leads us to TimSort.sort algorithm. Description can be found here. Why is it better? Less comparisons that in merge sort according to comments in JDK sources.
Moreover you should be aware that it is all single threaded, so no parallelization here.
Third question, "your code":
You create too many objects. When it comes to performance, mutation (sadly) is your friend.
Premature optimization is the root of all evil -- Donald Knuth. Before making any optimizations (like parallelism), try to implement single threaded version and compare the results.
Use something like JMH to test performance of your code.
You should not probably use Stream class if you want to have the best performance as it does additional caching.
I intentionally did not give you answer like "super-fast merge sort in scala can be found here", but just some tips for you to apply to your code and coding practices.
Hope it will help you.