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Add FFTW 3.3.8 source, and a Linux build
author Chris Cannam
date Tue, 19 Nov 2019 14:52:55 +0000
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Chris@82 1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
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Chris@82 3 <!-- This manual is for FFTW
Chris@82 4 (version 3.3.8, 24 May 2018).
Chris@82 5
Chris@82 6 Copyright (C) 2003 Matteo Frigo.
Chris@82 7
Chris@82 8 Copyright (C) 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Chris@82 9
Chris@82 10 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
Chris@82 11 manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
Chris@82 12 preserved on all copies.
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Chris@82 14 Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
Chris@82 15 manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
Chris@82 16 entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
Chris@82 17 permission notice identical to this one.
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Chris@82 22 approved by the Free Software Foundation. -->
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Chris@82 24 <head>
Chris@82 25 <title>FFTW 3.3.8: Thread safety</title>
Chris@82 26
Chris@82 27 <meta name="description" content="FFTW 3.3.8: Thread safety">
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Chris@82 35 <link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents">
Chris@82 36 <link href="Multi_002dthreaded-FFTW.html#Multi_002dthreaded-FFTW" rel="up" title="Multi-threaded FFTW">
Chris@82 37 <link href="Distributed_002dmemory-FFTW-with-MPI.html#Distributed_002dmemory-FFTW-with-MPI" rel="next" title="Distributed-memory FFTW with MPI">
Chris@82 38 <link href="How-Many-Threads-to-Use_003f.html#How-Many-Threads-to-Use_003f" rel="prev" title="How Many Threads to Use?">
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Chris@82 66
Chris@82 67
Chris@82 68 </head>
Chris@82 69
Chris@82 70 <body lang="en">
Chris@82 71 <a name="Thread-safety"></a>
Chris@82 72 <div class="header">
Chris@82 73 <p>
Chris@82 74 Previous: <a href="How-Many-Threads-to-Use_003f.html#How-Many-Threads-to-Use_003f" accesskey="p" rel="prev">How Many Threads to Use?</a>, Up: <a href="Multi_002dthreaded-FFTW.html#Multi_002dthreaded-FFTW" accesskey="u" rel="up">Multi-threaded FFTW</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Concept-Index.html#Concept-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
Chris@82 75 </div>
Chris@82 76 <hr>
Chris@82 77 <a name="Thread-safety-1"></a>
Chris@82 78 <h3 class="section">5.4 Thread safety</h3>
Chris@82 79
Chris@82 80 <a name="index-threads-1"></a>
Chris@82 81 <a name="index-OpenMP-3"></a>
Chris@82 82 <a name="index-thread-safety-1"></a>
Chris@82 83 <p>Users writing multi-threaded programs (including OpenMP) must concern
Chris@82 84 themselves with the <em>thread safety</em> of the libraries they
Chris@82 85 use&mdash;that is, whether it is safe to call routines in parallel from
Chris@82 86 multiple threads. FFTW can be used in such an environment, but some
Chris@82 87 care must be taken because the planner routines share data
Chris@82 88 (e.g. wisdom and trigonometric tables) between calls and plans.
Chris@82 89 </p>
Chris@82 90 <p>The upshot is that the only thread-safe routine in FFTW is
Chris@82 91 <code>fftw_execute</code> (and the new-array variants thereof). All other routines
Chris@82 92 (e.g. the planner) should only be called from one thread at a time. So,
Chris@82 93 for example, you can wrap a semaphore lock around any calls to the
Chris@82 94 planner; even more simply, you can just create all of your plans from
Chris@82 95 one thread. We do not think this should be an important restriction
Chris@82 96 (FFTW is designed for the situation where the only performance-sensitive
Chris@82 97 code is the actual execution of the transform), and the benefits of
Chris@82 98 shared data between plans are great.
Chris@82 99 </p>
Chris@82 100 <p>Note also that, since the plan is not modified by <code>fftw_execute</code>,
Chris@82 101 it is safe to execute the <em>same plan</em> in parallel by multiple
Chris@82 102 threads. However, since a given plan operates by default on a fixed
Chris@82 103 array, you need to use one of the new-array execute functions (see <a href="New_002darray-Execute-Functions.html#New_002darray-Execute-Functions">New-array Execute Functions</a>) so that different threads compute the transform of different data.
Chris@82 104 </p>
Chris@82 105 <p>(Users should note that these comments only apply to programs using
Chris@82 106 shared-memory threads or OpenMP. Parallelism using MPI or forked processes
Chris@82 107 involves a separate address-space and global variables for each process,
Chris@82 108 and is not susceptible to problems of this sort.)
Chris@82 109 </p>
Chris@82 110 <p>The FFTW planner is intended to be called from a single thread. If you
Chris@82 111 really must call it from multiple threads, you are expected to grab
Chris@82 112 whatever lock makes sense for your application, with the understanding
Chris@82 113 that you may be holding that lock for a long time, which is undesirable.
Chris@82 114 </p>
Chris@82 115 <p>Neither strategy works, however, in the following situation. The
Chris@82 116 &ldquo;application&rdquo; is structured as a set of &ldquo;plugins&rdquo; which are unaware
Chris@82 117 of each other, and for whatever reason the &ldquo;plugins&rdquo; cannot coordinate
Chris@82 118 on grabbing the lock. (This is not a technical problem, but an
Chris@82 119 organizational one. The &ldquo;plugins&rdquo; are written by independent agents,
Chris@82 120 and from the perspective of each plugin&rsquo;s author, each plugin is using
Chris@82 121 FFTW correctly from a single thread.) To cope with this situation,
Chris@82 122 starting from FFTW-3.3.5, FFTW supports an API to make the planner
Chris@82 123 thread-safe:
Chris@82 124 </p>
Chris@82 125 <div class="example">
Chris@82 126 <pre class="example">void fftw_make_planner_thread_safe(void);
Chris@82 127 </pre></div>
Chris@82 128 <a name="index-fftw_005fmake_005fplanner_005fthread_005fsafe"></a>
Chris@82 129
Chris@82 130 <p>This call operates by brute force: It just installs a hook that wraps a
Chris@82 131 lock (chosen by us) around all planner calls. So there is no magic and
Chris@82 132 you get the worst of all worlds. The planner is still single-threaded,
Chris@82 133 but you cannot choose which lock to use. The planner still holds the
Chris@82 134 lock for a long time, but you cannot impose a timeout on lock
Chris@82 135 acquisition. As of FFTW-3.3.5 and FFTW-3.3.6, this call does not work
Chris@82 136 when using OpenMP as threading substrate. (Suggestions on what to do
Chris@82 137 about this bug are welcome.) <em>Do not use
Chris@82 138 <code>fftw_make_planner_thread_safe</code> unless there is no other choice,</em>
Chris@82 139 such as in the application/plugin situation.
Chris@82 140 </p><hr>
Chris@82 141 <div class="header">
Chris@82 142 <p>
Chris@82 143 Previous: <a href="How-Many-Threads-to-Use_003f.html#How-Many-Threads-to-Use_003f" accesskey="p" rel="prev">How Many Threads to Use?</a>, Up: <a href="Multi_002dthreaded-FFTW.html#Multi_002dthreaded-FFTW" accesskey="u" rel="up">Multi-threaded FFTW</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Concept-Index.html#Concept-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
Chris@82 144 </div>
Chris@82 145
Chris@82 146
Chris@82 147
Chris@82 148 </body>
Chris@82 149 </html>