On Tuesday, 24 September 2013 at 22:14:30 UTC, bearophile wrote:
minimallyInitializedArray is not stupid, if the specified type
has no indirections, it's equivalent to using
uninitializedArray, but it's safer if you later change the
type. So in general it's not a good idea to use
uninitializedArray, unless you have special needs. The two
functions are not equivalent, one of them is for normal
performance tuning, and the other is for special usages.
I have not found this -- using minimallyInitializedArray for the
arrays of built-in types is slower than if I use
uninitializedArray.
These arrays have their values initialized immediately -- this is
the actual code from inside the betweenness centrality function:
size_t[] stack = uninitializedArray!(size_t[])(g.vertexCount);
T[] sigma = uninitializedArray!(T[])(g.vertexCount);
T[] delta = uninitializedArray!(T[])(g.vertexCount);
long[] d = uninitializedArray!(long[])(g.vertexCount);
auto q = VertexQueue(g.vertexCount);
Appender!(size_t[])[] p =
minimallyInitializedArray!(Appender!(size_t[])[])(g.vertexCount);
sigma[] = to!T(0);
delta[] = to!T(0);
d[] = -1L;
... so I don't see the safety problem here. uninitializedArray
is used only for arrays of built-in types,
minimallyInitializedArray is used otherwise.
On the other hand, if inside the VertexQueue implementation, I
replace the "new" declaration with an uninitializedArray call,
the code gets slower by a noticeable amount.
Very odd -- any ideas why that might be?
See above, use uninitializedArray only in special situations
and when you know what you are doing. Here you do not know what
you are doing, so use minimallyInitializedArray.
uninitializedArray or minimallyInitializedArray, using either
inside the VertexQueue creates a significant slowdown.
uninitializedArray creates random pointers, and aliases that
could increase the work done by the GC and cause (temporary if
you initialized all your data) memory leaks. Try to totally
disable the GC and time the two versions of the code, with and
without uninitializedArray. If the GC is the cause of speed
differences and you disable it, you will see no performance
difference any more.
You seem to be suggesting that using uninitializedArray could
cause general slowdown, but in general it results in a speedup
compared to minimallyInitializedArray.
In the one case where it causes a slowdown,
minimallyInitializedArray does too, and by a similar amount.
