path: root/system/doc/efficiency_guide/processes.xml

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<chapter>
  <header>
    <copyright>
      <year>2001</year><year>2016</year>
      <holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
    </copyright>
    <legalnotice>
      Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
      you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
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      Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
      distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
      WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
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    </legalnotice>

    <title>Processes</title>
    <prepared>Bjorn Gustavsson</prepared>
    <docno></docno>
    <date>2007-11-21</date>
    <rev></rev>
    <file>processes.xml</file>
  </header>

  <section>
    <title>Creating an Erlang Process</title>

    <p>An Erlang process is lightweight compared to threads and
    processes in operating systems.</p>

    <p>A newly spawned Erlang process uses 309 words of memory
    in the non-SMP emulator without HiPE support. (SMP support
    and HiPE support both add to this size.) The size can
    be found as follows:</p>

    <pre>
Erlang (BEAM) emulator version 5.6 [async-threads:0] [kernel-poll:false]

Eshell V5.6  (abort with ^G)
1> <input>Fun = fun() -> receive after infinity -> ok end end.</input>
#Fun&lt;...>
2> <input>{_,Bytes} = process_info(spawn(Fun), memory).</input>
{memory,1232}
3> <input>Bytes div erlang:system_info(wordsize).</input>
309</pre>
    
    <p>The size includes 233 words for the heap area (which includes the
    stack). The garbage collector increases the heap as needed.</p>

    <p>The main (outer) loop for a process <em>must</em> be tail-recursive.
    Otherwise, the stack grows until the process terminates.</p>

    <p><em>DO NOT</em></p>
    <code type="erl">
loop() -> 
  receive
     {sys, Msg} ->
         handle_sys_msg(Msg),
         loop();
     {From, Msg} ->
          Reply = handle_msg(Msg),
          From ! Reply,
          loop()
  end,
  io:format("Message is processed~n", []).</code>

    <p>The call to <c>io:format/2</c> will never be executed, but a
    return address will still be pushed to the stack each time
    <c>loop/0</c> is called recursively. The correct tail-recursive
    version of the function looks as follows:</p>

    <p><em>DO</em></p>
<code type="erl">
   loop() -> 
      receive
         {sys, Msg} ->
            handle_sys_msg(Msg),
            loop();
         {From, Msg} ->
            Reply = handle_msg(Msg),
            From ! Reply,
            loop()
    end.</code>

    <section>
      <title>Initial Heap Size</title>

      <p>The default initial heap size of 233 words is quite conservative
      to support Erlang systems with hundreds of thousands or
      even millions of processes. The garbage collector grows and
      shrinks the heap as needed.</p>

      <p>In a system that use comparatively few processes, performance
      <em>might</em> be improved by increasing the minimum heap size
      using either the <c>+h</c> option for
      <seealso marker="erts:erl">erl</seealso> or on a process-per-process
      basis using the <c>min_heap_size</c> option for
      <seealso marker="erts:erlang#spawn_opt/4">spawn_opt/4</seealso>.</p>

      <p>The gain is twofold:</p>
      <list type="bulleted">
	<item>Although the garbage collector grows the heap, it grows it
	step-by-step, which is more costly than directly establishing a
	larger heap when the process is spawned.</item>
	<item>The garbage collector can also shrink the heap if it is
	much larger than the amount of data stored on it;
	setting the minimum heap size prevents that.</item>
      </list>

      <warning><p>The emulator probably uses more memory, and because garbage
      collections occur less frequently, huge binaries can be
      kept much longer.</p></warning>

      <p>In systems with many processes, computation tasks that run
      for a short time can be spawned off into a new process with
      a higher minimum heap size. When the process is done, it sends
      the result of the computation to another process and terminates.
      If the minimum heap size is calculated properly, the process might
      not have to do any garbage collections at all.
      <em>This optimization is not to be attempted
      without proper measurements.</em></p>
    </section>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Process Messages</title>

    <p>All data in messages between Erlang processes is copied,
      except for
      <seealso marker="binaryhandling#refc_binary">refc binaries</seealso>
      on the same Erlang node.</p>

    <p>When a message is sent to a process on another Erlang node,
      it is first encoded to the Erlang External Format before
      being sent through a TCP/IP socket. The receiving Erlang node decodes
      the message and distributes it to the correct process.</p>

    <section>
      <title>Constant Pool</title>

      <p>Constant Erlang terms (also called <em>literals</em>) are now
      kept in constant pools; each loaded module has its own pool.
      The following function does no longer build the tuple every time
      it is called (only to have it discarded the next time the garbage
      collector was run), but the tuple is located in the module's
      constant pool:</p>

    <p><em>DO</em> (in R12B and later)</p>
      <code type="erl">
days_in_month(M) ->
    element(M, {31,28,31,30,31,30,31,31,30,31,30,31}).</code>

      <p>But if a constant is sent to another process (or stored in
      an Ets table), it is <em>copied</em>.
      The reason is that the runtime system must be able
      to keep track of all references to constants to unload code
      containing constants properly. (When the code is unloaded,
      the constants are copied to the heap of the processes that refer
      to them.) The copying of constants might be eliminated in a future
      Erlang/OTP release.</p>
    </section>

    <section>
      <title>Loss of Sharing</title>

      <p>Shared subterms are <em>not</em> preserved in the following
      cases:</p>
      <list type="bulleted">
	<item>When a term is sent to another process</item>
	<item>When a term is passed as the initial process arguments in
	the <c>spawn</c> call</item>
	<item>When a term is stored in an Ets table</item>
      </list>
      <p>That is an optimization. Most applications do not send messages
      with shared subterms.</p>

      <p>The following example shows how a shared subterm can be created:</p>

      <code type="erl">
kilo_byte() ->
    kilo_byte(10, [42]).

kilo_byte(0, Acc) ->
    Acc;
kilo_byte(N, Acc) ->
    kilo_byte(N-1, [Acc|Acc]).</code>

       <p><c>kilo_byte/1</c> creates a deep list.
       If <c>list_to_binary/1</c> is called, the deep list can be
       converted to a binary of 1024 bytes:</p>

      <pre>
1> <input>byte_size(list_to_binary(efficiency_guide:kilo_byte())).</input>
1024</pre>

       <p>Using the <c>erts_debug:size/1</c> BIF, it can be seen that the
       deep list only requires 22 words of heap space:</p>

      <pre>
2> <input>erts_debug:size(efficiency_guide:kilo_byte()).</input>
22</pre>

       <p>Using the <c>erts_debug:flat_size/1</c> BIF, the size of the
       deep list can be calculated if sharing is ignored. It becomes
       the size of the list when it has been sent to another process
       or stored in an Ets table:</p>

      <pre>
3> <input>erts_debug:flat_size(efficiency_guide:kilo_byte()).</input>
4094</pre>

      <p>It can be verified that sharing will be lost if the data is
      inserted into an Ets table:</p>

      <pre>
4> <input>T = ets:new(tab, []).</input>
17
5> <input>ets:insert(T, {key,efficiency_guide:kilo_byte()}).</input>
true
6> <input>erts_debug:size(element(2, hd(ets:lookup(T, key)))).</input>
4094
7> <input>erts_debug:flat_size(element(2, hd(ets:lookup(T, key)))).</input>
4094</pre>

      <p>When the data has passed through an Ets table,
      <c>erts_debug:size/1</c> and <c>erts_debug:flat_size/1</c>
      return the same value. Sharing has been lost.</p>

      <p>In a future Erlang/OTP release, it might be implemented a
      way to (optionally) preserve sharing. There are no plans to make
      preserving of sharing the default behaviour, as that would
      penalize the vast majority of Erlang applications.</p>
    </section>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>SMP Emulator</title>

    <p>The SMP emulator (introduced in R11B) takes advantage of a
    multi-core or multi-CPU computer by running several Erlang scheduler
    threads (typically, the same as the number of cores). Each scheduler
    thread schedules Erlang processes in the same way as the Erlang scheduler
    in the non-SMP emulator.</p>

    <p>To gain performance by using the SMP emulator, your application
    <em>must have more than one runnable Erlang process</em> most of the time.
    Otherwise, the Erlang emulator can still only run one Erlang process
    at the time, but you must still pay the overhead for locking. Although
    Erlang/OTP tries to reduce the locking overhead as much as possible,
    it will never become exactly zero.</p>

    <p>Benchmarks that appear to be concurrent are often sequential.
    The estone benchmark, for example, is entirely sequential. So is
    the most common implementation of the "ring benchmark"; usually one process
    is active, while the others wait in a <c>receive</c> statement.</p>
  </section>
</chapter>