Using FLoops.jl to update array counters

Hey, all!

I am trying to parallelize a for-loop that updates array and scalar counters. I am able to reduce the scalar counters, but I get this error when I add the array counter.
ERROR: LoadError: syntax: invalid syntax in "local" declaration around C:\Users\User\.julia\packages\FLoops\AN2BM\src\reduce.jl:449

This is the function I was using. It takes an input file and uses the data of each row to find the appropriate element of the array counter to increment.

function parallel_test(Input, N_rows)
    counter_evens = 0
    counter_odds = zeros(Int16, (N_rows))

    @floop for i = 1:N_rows
        a = round(Input[i,1])    # some processing based on input data

        if a%2 == 0
            c_evens = 1
            @reduce(counter_evens += c_evens)
        else
            c_odds= 1
            ind = round(rand()*a)  # find array element to increment
            @reduce(counter_odds[ind] += c_odds)
        end
    end

    return counter_evens, counter_odds

end

Input_file = rand(1:9, (10,5)) .* rand()

evens, odds = parallel_test(Input_file , 10)

Am I using @reduce incorrectly, or is this configuration not possible with FLoops.jl?

Thanks!

counter_odds[ind] += ... is the problematic part (though the error message can be improved). In particular, you can’t use shared mutable state like this in parallel programming as it’d invoke a data race. Here is one way to do it

function parallel_test(Input, N_rows)
    counter_evens = 0

    @floop for i = 1:N_rows
        a = round(Input[i,1])

        if a%2 == 0
            c_evens = 1
            @reduce(counter_evens += c_evens)
        else
            c_odds= 1
            ind = min(max(round(Int, rand()*a), 1), N_rows)  # get an integer
            another = ind => c_odds
            @reduce() do (counter_odds = zeros(Int16, (N_rows)); another)
                if another isa Pair
                    counter_odds[first(another)] += last(another)
                else
                    counter_odds .+= another
                end
            end
        end
    end

    return counter_evens, counter_odds
end

another isa Pair is a bit ugly “hack.” If you have a (hypothetical) OneHotVector, you can also write it as

another = OneHotVector(ind => c_odds)  # s.t. another[ind] == c_odds and 0 elsewhere
@reduce() do (counter_odds = zeros(Int16, (N_rows)); another)
    counter_odds .+= another
end

which clarifies the symmetry of this reduction. See also the histogram section in A quick introduction to data parallelism in Julia for a similar example. (I’m also writing another tutorial specifically for reduction with mutable states but it’s not finished yet.)

Thanks a lot !

My actual array counters are 2-D and higher, but I could linearize them and use the OneHotVector() solution.