Parallel map

Python's builtin :func:`map` functions allows a function to be applied to a sequence element-by-element. This type of code is typically trivial to parallelize. In fact, since IPython's interface is all about functions anyway, you can just use the builtin :func:`map` with a :class:`RemoteFunction`, or a DirectView's :meth:`map` method:

In [62]: serial_result = map(lambda x:x**10, range(32))

In [63]: parallel_result = dview.map_sync(lambda x: x**10, range(32))

In [67]: serial_result==parallel_result
Out[67]: True

Remote function decorators

Remote functions are just like normal functions, but when they are called, they execute on one or more engines, rather than locally. IPython provides two decorators:

In [10]: @dview.remote(block=True)
   ....: def getpid():
   ....:     import os
   ....:     return os.getpid()
   ....:

In [11]: getpid()
Out[11]: [12345, 12346, 12347, 12348]

The @parallel decorator creates parallel functions, that break up an element-wise operations and distribute them, reconstructing the result.

In [12]: import numpy as np

In [13]: A = np.random.random((64,48))

In [14]: @dview.parallel(block=True)
   ....: def pmul(A,B):
   ....:     return A*B

In [15]: C_local = A*A

In [16]: C_remote = pmul(A,A)

In [17]: (C_local == C_remote).all()
Out[17]: True

Calling a @parallel function does not correspond to map. It is used for splitting element-wise operations that operate on a sequence or array. For map behavior, parallel functions do have a map method.

A quick example to illustrate the difference in arguments for the two modes:

In [16]: @dview.parallel(block=True)
   ....: def echo(x):
   ....:     return str(x)
   ....:

In [17]: echo(range(5))
Out[17]: ['[0, 1]', '[2]', '[3]', '[4]']

In [18]: echo.map(range(5))
Out[18]: ['0', '1', '2', '3', '4']

apply

The main method for doing remote execution (in fact, all methods that communicate with the engines are built on top of it), is :meth:`View.apply`.

We strive to provide the cleanest interface we can, so apply has the following signature:

view.apply(f, *args, **kwargs)

There are various ways to call functions with IPython, and these flags are set as attributes of the View. The DirectView has just two of these flags:

dv.block : bool

whether to wait for the result, or return an :class:`AsyncResult` object immediately

dv.track : bool

whether to instruct pyzmq to track when zeromq is done sending the message. This is primarily useful for non-copying sends of numpy arrays that you plan to edit in-place. You need to know when it becomes safe to edit the buffer without corrupting the message.

dv.targets : int, list of ints

which targets this view is associated with.

Creating a view is simple: index-access on a client creates a :class:`.DirectView`.

In [4]: view = rc[1:3]
Out[4]: <DirectView [1, 2]>

In [5]: view.apply<tab>
view.apply  view.apply_async  view.apply_sync

For convenience, you can set block temporarily for a single call with the extra sync/async methods.

Blocking execution

In blocking mode, the :class:`.DirectView` object (called dview in these examples) submits the command to the controller, which places the command in the engines' queues for execution. The :meth:`apply` call then blocks until the engines are done executing the command:

In [2]: dview = rc[:] # A DirectView of all engines
In [3]: dview.block=True
In [4]: dview['a'] = 5

In [5]: dview['b'] = 10

In [6]: dview.apply(lambda x: a+b+x, 27)
Out[6]: [42, 42, 42, 42]

You can also select blocking execution on a call-by-call basis with the :meth:`apply_sync` method:

In [7]: dview.block=False

In [8]: dview.apply_sync(lambda x: a+b+x, 27)
Out[8]: [42, 42, 42, 42]

Python commands can be executed as strings on specific engines by using a View's execute method:

In [6]: rc[::2].execute('c=a+b')

In [7]: rc[1::2].execute('c=a-b')

In [8]: dview['c'] # shorthand for dview.pull('c', block=True)
Out[8]: [15, -5, 15, -5]

Non-blocking execution

In non-blocking mode, :meth:`apply` submits the command to be executed and then returns a :class:`AsyncResult` object immediately. The :class:`AsyncResult` object gives you a way of getting a result at a later time through its :meth:`get` method.

This allows you to quickly submit long running commands without blocking your local Python/IPython session:

# define our function
In [6]: def wait(t):
  ....:     import time
  ....:     tic = time.time()
  ....:     time.sleep(t)
  ....:     return time.time()-tic

# In non-blocking mode
In [7]: ar = dview.apply_async(wait, 2)

# Now block for the result
In [8]: ar.get()
Out[8]: [2.0006198883056641, 1.9997570514678955, 1.9996809959411621, 2.0003249645233154]

# Again in non-blocking mode
In [9]: ar = dview.apply_async(wait, 10)

# Poll to see if the result is ready
In [10]: ar.ready()
Out[10]: False

# ask for the result, but wait a maximum of 1 second:
In [45]: ar.get(1)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TimeoutError                              Traceback (most recent call last)
/home/you/<ipython-input-45-7cd858bbb8e0> in <module>()
----> 1 ar.get(1)

/path/to/site-packages/IPython/parallel/asyncresult.pyc in get(self, timeout)
     62                 raise self._exception
     63         else:
---> 64             raise error.TimeoutError("Result not ready.")
     65
     66     def ready(self):

TimeoutError: Result not ready.

Often, it is desirable to wait until a set of :class:`AsyncResult` objects are done. For this, there is a the method :meth:`wait`. This method takes a tuple of :class:`AsyncResult` objects (or msg_ids or indices to the client's History), and blocks until all of the associated results are ready:

In [72]: dview.block=False

# A trivial list of AsyncResults objects
In [73]: pr_list = [dview.apply_async(wait, 3) for i in range(10)]

# Wait until all of them are done
In [74]: dview.wait(pr_list)

# Then, their results are ready using get() or the `.r` attribute
In [75]: pr_list[0].get()
Out[75]: [2.9982571601867676, 2.9982588291168213, 2.9987530708312988, 2.9990990161895752]

The block and targets keyword arguments and attributes

Most DirectView methods (excluding :meth:`apply`) accept block and targets as keyword arguments. As we have seen above, these keyword arguments control the blocking mode and which engines the command is applied to. The :class:`View` class also has :attr:`block` and :attr:`targets` attributes that control the default behavior when the keyword arguments are not provided. Thus the following logic is used for :attr:`block` and :attr:`targets`:

• If no keyword argument is provided, the instance attributes are used.
• The Keyword arguments, if provided overrides the instance attributes for the duration of a single call.

The following examples demonstrate how to use the instance attributes:

In [16]: dview.targets = [0,2]

In [17]: dview.block = False

In [18]: ar = dview.apply(lambda : 10)

In [19]: ar.get()
Out[19]: [10, 10]

In [20]: dview.targets = rc.ids # all engines (4)

In [21]: dview.block = True

In [22]: dview.apply(lambda : 42)
Out[22]: [42, 42, 42, 42]

The :attr:`block` and :attr:`targets` instance attributes of the :class:`.DirectView` also determine the behavior of the parallel magic commands.

Basic push and pull

Here are some examples of how you use :meth:`push` and :meth:`pull`:

In [38]: dview.push(dict(a=1.03234,b=3453))
Out[38]: [None,None,None,None]

In [39]: dview.pull('a')
Out[39]: [ 1.03234, 1.03234, 1.03234, 1.03234]

In [40]: dview.pull('b', targets=0)
Out[40]: 3453

In [41]: dview.pull(('a','b'))
Out[41]: [ [1.03234, 3453], [1.03234, 3453], [1.03234, 3453], [1.03234, 3453] ]

In [42]: dview.push(dict(c='speed'))
Out[42]: [None,None,None,None]

In non-blocking mode :meth:`push` and :meth:`pull` also return :class:`AsyncResult` objects:

In [48]: ar = dview.pull('a', block=False)

In [49]: ar.get()
Out[49]: [1.03234, 1.03234, 1.03234, 1.03234]

Dictionary interface

Since a Python namespace is just a :class:`dict`, :class:`DirectView` objects provide dictionary-style access by key and methods such as :meth:`get` and :meth:`update` for convenience. This make the remote namespaces of the engines appear as a local dictionary. Underneath, these methods call :meth:`apply`:

In [51]: dview['a']=['foo','bar']

In [52]: dview['a']
Out[52]: [ ['foo', 'bar'], ['foo', 'bar'], ['foo', 'bar'], ['foo', 'bar'] ]

Scatter and gather

Sometimes it is useful to partition a sequence and push the partitions to different engines. In MPI language, this is know as scatter/gather and we follow that terminology. However, it is important to remember that in IPython's :class:`Client` class, :meth:`scatter` is from the interactive IPython session to the engines and :meth:`gather` is from the engines back to the interactive IPython session. For scatter/gather operations between engines, MPI, pyzmq, or some other direct interconnect should be used.

In [58]: dview.scatter('a',range(16))
Out[58]: [None,None,None,None]

In [59]: dview['a']
Out[59]: [ [0, 1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6, 7], [8, 9, 10, 11], [12, 13, 14, 15] ]

In [60]: dview.gather('a')
Out[60]: [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15]

How to do parallel list comprehensions

In many cases list comprehensions are nicer than using the map function. While we don't have fully parallel list comprehensions, it is simple to get the basic effect using :meth:`scatter` and :meth:`gather`:

In [66]: dview.scatter('x',range(64))

In [67]: %px y = [i**10 for i in x]
Parallel execution on engines: [0, 1, 2, 3]

In [68]: y = dview.gather('y')

In [69]: print y
[0, 1, 1024, 59049, 1048576, 9765625, 60466176, 282475249, 1073741824,...]

Remote imports

Sometimes you will want to import packages both in your interactive session and on your remote engines. This can be done with the :class:`ContextManager` created by a DirectView's :meth:`sync_imports` method:

In [69]: with dview.sync_imports():
   ....:     import numpy
importing numpy on engine(s)

Any imports made inside the block will also be performed on the view's engines. sync_imports also takes a local boolean flag that defaults to True, which specifies whether the local imports should also be performed. However, support for local=False has not been implemented, so only packages that can be imported locally will work this way. Note that the usual renaming of the import handle in the same line like in import matplotlib.pyplot as plt' does not work on the remote engine, the `as plt is ignored remotely, while it executes locally. One could rename the remote handle with %px plt = pyplot though after the import.

You can also specify imports via the @require decorator. This is a decorator designed for use in Dependencies, but can be used to handle remote imports as well. Modules or module names passed to @require will be imported before the decorated function is called. If they cannot be imported, the decorated function will never execute and will fail with an UnmetDependencyError. Failures of single Engines will be collected and raise a CompositeError, as demonstrated in the next section.

In [69]: from IPython.parallel import require

In [70]: @require('re')
   ....: def findall(pat, x):
   ....:     # re is guaranteed to be available
   ....:     return re.findall(pat, x)

# you can also pass modules themselves, that you already have locally:
In [71]: @require(time)
   ....: def wait(t):
   ....:     time.sleep(t)
   ....:     return t

Parallel exceptions

In the multiengine interface, parallel commands can raise Python exceptions, just like serial commands. But it is a little subtle, because a single parallel command can actually raise multiple exceptions (one for each engine the command was run on). To express this idea, we have a :exc:`CompositeError` exception class that will be raised in most cases. The :exc:`CompositeError` class is a special type of exception that wraps one or more other types of exceptions. Here is how it works:

In [78]: dview.block = True

In [79]: dview.execute("1/0")
[0:execute]:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZeroDivisionError                         Traceback (most recent call last)
----> 1 1/0
ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero

[1:execute]:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZeroDivisionError                         Traceback (most recent call last)
----> 1 1/0
ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero

[2:execute]:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZeroDivisionError                         Traceback (most recent call last)
----> 1 1/0
ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero

[3:execute]:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZeroDivisionError                         Traceback (most recent call last)
----> 1 1/0
ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero

Notice how the error message printed when :exc:`CompositeError` is raised has information about the individual exceptions that were raised on each engine. If you want, you can even raise one of these original exceptions:

In [79]: from IPython.parallel import CompositeError

In [80]: try:
   ....:     dview.execute('1/0', block=True)
   ....: except CompositeError, e:
   ....:     e.raise_exception()
   ....:
   ....:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZeroDivisionError                         Traceback (most recent call last)
----> 1 1/0
ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero

If you are working in IPython, you can simple type %debug after one of these :exc:`CompositeError` exceptions is raised, and inspect the exception instance:

In [81]: dview.execute('1/0')
[0:execute]:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZeroDivisionError                         Traceback (most recent call last)
----> 1 1/0
ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero

[1:execute]:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZeroDivisionError                         Traceback (most recent call last)
----> 1 1/0
ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero

[2:execute]:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZeroDivisionError                         Traceback (most recent call last)
----> 1 1/0
ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero

[3:execute]:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZeroDivisionError                         Traceback (most recent call last)
----> 1 1/0
ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero

In [82]: %debug
> /.../site-packages/IPython/parallel/client/asyncresult.py(125)get()
    124             else:
--> 125                 raise self._exception
    126         else:

# Here, self._exception is the CompositeError instance:

ipdb> e = self._exception
ipdb> e
CompositeError(4)

# we can tab-complete on e to see available methods:
ipdb> e.<TAB>
e.args               e.message            e.traceback
e.elist              e.msg
e.ename              e.print_traceback
e.engine_info        e.raise_exception
e.evalue             e.render_traceback

# We can then display the individual tracebacks, if we want:
ipdb> e.print_traceback(1)
[1:execute]:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZeroDivisionError                         Traceback (most recent call last)
----> 1 1/0
ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero

Since you might have 100 engines, you probably don't want to see 100 tracebacks for a simple NameError because of a typo. For this reason, CompositeError truncates the list of exceptions it will print to :attr:`CompositeError.tb_limit` (default is five). You can change this limit to suit your needs with:

In [20]: from IPython.parallel import CompositeError
In [21]: CompositeError.tb_limit = 1
In [22]: %px x=z
[0:execute]:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NameError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
----> 1 x=z
NameError: name 'z' is not defined

... 3 more exceptions ...

All of this same error handling magic even works in non-blocking mode:

In [83]: dview.block=False

In [84]: ar = dview.execute('1/0')

In [85]: ar.get()
[0:execute]:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZeroDivisionError                         Traceback (most recent call last)
----> 1 1/0
ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero

... 3 more exceptions ...