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scala-stream

README.md

ScalaStream

This is an implementation of BabelStream in Scala 3 on the JVM. In theory, this implementation also covers Java. Scala and Java, like any other programming language, has its own ecosystem of library supported parallel programming frameworks, we currently implement the following:

  • Parallel streams (introduced in Java 8) - src/main/scala/scalastream/J8SStream.scala
  • Scala Parallel Collections
    • src/main/scala/scalastream/ParStream.scala

As the benchmark is relatively simple, we also implement some baselines:

  • Single threaded Scala for (i.e foreach sugar) - src/main/scala/scalastream/PlainStream.scala
  • Manually parallelism with Java executors - src/main/scala/scalastream/ThreadedStream.scala

Performance considerations

As Scala 3 defaults to Scala 2.13's standard library, we roll our own Fractional typeclass with liberal use of inlining and specialisation. This is motivated by 2.13 stdlib's lack of specialisation for primitives types on the default Fractional and Numeric typeclasses.

The use of Spire to mitigate this was attempted, however, due to its use of Scala 2 macros, it currently doesn't compile with Scala 3.

Build & Run

Prerequisites

  • JDK >= 8 on any of its supported platform; known working implementations:

To run the benchmark, first create a binary:

> ./sbt assembly

The binary will be located at ./target/scala-3.0.0/scala-stream.jar. Run it with:

> java -version 
openjdk version "11.0.11" 2021-04-20
OpenJDK Runtime Environment 18.9 (build 11.0.11+9)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM 18.9 (build 11.0.11+9, mixed mode, sharing)
> java  -jar target/scala-3.0.0/scala-stream.jar --help

For best results, benchmark with the following JVM flags:

-XX:-UseOnStackReplacement     # disable OSR, not useful for this benchmark as we are measuring peak performance  
-XX:-TieredCompilation         # disable C1, go straight to C2 
-XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=512m # don't flush compiled code out of cache at any point

Worked example:

> java -XX:-UseOnStackReplacement -XX:-TieredCompilation -XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=512m -jar target/scala-3.0.0/scala-stream.jar

BabelStream
Version: 3.4.0
Implementation: Scala Parallel Collections; Scala (Java 11.0.11; Red Hat, Inc.; home=/usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-11.0.11.0.9-2.fc33.x86_64)
Running kernels 100 times
Precision: double
Array size: 268.4 MB (=0.3 GB)
Total size: 805.3 MB (=0.8 GB)
Function    MBytes/sec  Min (sec)   Max         Average     
Copy        4087.077    0.13136     0.24896     0.15480     
Mul         2934.709    0.18294     0.28706     0.21627     
Add         3016.342    0.26698     0.39835     0.31119     
Triad       3016.496    0.26697     0.37612     0.31040     
Dot         2216.096    0.24226     0.41235     0.28264

Graal Native Image

The port has partial support for Graal Native Image, to generate one, run:

> ./sbt nativeImage

The ELF binary will be located at ./target/native-image/scala-stream, relocation should work on the same architecture the binary is built on.

There's an ongoing bug with Scala 3 's use of lazy vals where the program crashes at declaration site. Currently, Scala Parallel Collections uses this feature internally, so selecting this device will crash at runtime.

The bug originates from the use of Unsafe in lazy val for thready safety guarantees. It seems that Graal only supports limited uses of this JVM implementation detail and Scala 3 happens to be on the unsupported side.