There's currently a known issue with the way operators (like +) get
codegen'd for many arguments that can cause this sort of performance issue.
There's definite plans to fix this. For now, simply splitting consecutive
applications of + onto separate lines should resolve it.

On Sun Feb 22 2015 at 2:59:07 AM Viral Shah <[email protected]> wrote:

> The memory usage balloons once the expression becomes bigger:
>
> julia> g(a0,a1,a2,a3,a4,x) = for i=1:10^6; f = a0 + a1*x +a2*x^2 + a3*x^3;
> end
> g (generic function with 3 methods)
>
> julia> @time g(1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0,1+im)
> elapsed time: 0.011524283 seconds (104 bytes allocated)
>
> As soon as I introduce the x^4 term, I get:
>
> julia> g(a0,a1,a2,a3,a4,x) = for i=1:10^6; f = a0 + a1*x +a2*x^2 + a3*x^3
> + a4*x^4; end
> g (generic function with 3 methods)
>
> julia> @time g(1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0,1+im)
> elapsed time: 0.081671568 seconds (129 MB allocated, 10.74% gc time in 6
> pauses with 0 full sweep)
>
> -viral
>
>
>
> On Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 7:14:22 AM UTC+5:30, DumpsterDoofus wrote:
>
>> I wrote a simple script for a Schroder fractal (a distant cousin of
>> Newton fractals) of a fourth-order polynomial:
>> function SchroderFourth(a0::Float64, a1::Float64, a2::Float64,
>> a3::Float64, a4::Float64, c::Complex{Float64})
>> x = c
>> x2 = c
>> M = 100
>> R = 10.0^-6
>> a = 0.1
>> for j in 1:M
>> x2 = x
>> f = a0 + a1*x + a2*x^2 + a3*x^3 + a4*x^4
>> fP = a1 + 2*a2*x + 3*a3*x^2 + 4*a4*x^3
>> fPP = 2*a2 + 6*a3*x + 12*a4*x^2;
>> x = x - f*fP/(fP^2 - fPP*f)
>> if abs(x - x2) < R
>> return exp(-a*(j - (log(abs(x - x2))-log(R))/log(R)) + angle(x)im)
>> end
>> end
>> return 0.0 + 0.0im
>> end
>>
>> I tested it using @time as follows:
>> @time arr = [SchroderFourth(1.0,2.0,3.0,4.0,5.0,x+y*im) for x in
>> linspace(-2,2,1000), y in linspace(-2,2,1000)];
>> resulting in
>> elapsed time: 3.371773428 seconds (2239441280 bytes allocated, 48.23% gc
>> time)
>>
>> So it's allocating 2.2GB throughout the computation, and half the time is
>> gc time. I have heard that sometimes this is caused by type instability,
>> but the SchroderFourth function is type-stable (always returns
>> Complex{Float64}). Am I committing any "great sins" in my implementation?
>>
>> Given that the array has 1M computations, and each computation loops at
>> most M=100 loops, I suppose it's possible that gigabytes of allocation
>> could occur if a memory address was gobbled up after each iteration of the
>> loop. In comparison, running the same computation on the (simpler) "mandel"
>> fractal on the JuliaLang website gives much less memory allocation (8MB):
>> function mandel(z)
>>     c = z
>>     maxiter = 80
>>     for n = 1:maxiter
>>         if abs(z) > 2
>>             return n-1
>>         end
>>         z = z^2 + c
>>     end
>>     return maxiter
>> end
>> @time arr = [mandel(x+y*im) for x in linspace(-2,2,1000), y in
>> linspace(-2,2,1000)];
>> giving
>> elapsed time: 0.123358763 seconds (8016176 bytes allocated)
>>
>> Any clues as to the large disparity in memory allocation between the two
>> functions? I assume I'm doing something dumb that's causing memory to be
>> allocated and gc'ed after each iteration, but am having trouble finding
>> what is causing it.
>>
>>
>>

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