Comments on: How fast can Erlang create processes? http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes What happens at LShift Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:05:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.12-alpha by: def ZA http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes#comment-60113 Sat, 02 Jun 2007 12:26:19 +0000 http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes#comment-60113 <p>"I don't just yet fancy the job of trawling through the megabytes of strace output looking for patterns, " </p> <p>You could maybe use the summary flag on strace to "strace -c" to give you a breakdown.</p> “I don’t just yet fancy the job of trawling through the megabytes of strace output looking for patterns, ”

You could maybe use the summary flag on strace to “strace -c” to give you a breakdown.

]]> by: Samuel Tardieu http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes#comment-9977 Wed, 13 Sep 2006 12:36:10 +0000 http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes#comment-9977 <p>It does make a lot of poll() call, but also much much more times() and gettimeofday() calls (700 times more than poll()).</p> It does make a lot of poll() call, but also much much more times() and gettimeofday() calls (700 times more than poll()).

]]> by: tonyg http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes#comment-9976 Wed, 13 Sep 2006 10:42:47 +0000 http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes#comment-9976 <p>@ratatask: yes, that'd probably give some idea. I don't just yet fancy the job of trawling through the megabytes of strace output looking for patterns, though :-)</p> @ratatask: yes, that’d probably give some idea. I don’t just yet fancy the job of trawling through the megabytes of strace output looking for patterns, though :-)

]]> by: ratatask http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes#comment-9967 Wed, 13 Sep 2006 06:00:43 +0000 http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes#comment-9967 <p>strace the erlang process if you want to see what it's doing using system time. I wouldn't be surprised if it was time reading, or a select/poll loop :-|</p> strace the erlang process if you want to see what it’s doing using
system time.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was time reading, or a select/poll loop :-|

]]> by: SM Smithfield http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes#comment-9964 Wed, 13 Sep 2006 00:22:34 +0000 http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes#comment-9964 <p>Just ran your test on a Mac (10.4 G5 2.1Ghz 512kB cache) 7> c(spawntest). {ok,spawntest} 8> spawntest:serial<em>spawn(1). 6.48313e+5 9> spawntest:serial</em>spawn(10). 6.48131e+5 10> spawntest:serial<em>spawn(10). 6.36188e+5 11> spawntest:serial</em>spawn(100). 6.33489e+5 12> spawntest:serial_spawn(100). 7.06393e+5</p> <p>I think these fellows might be onto something.</p> Just ran your test on a Mac (10.4 G5 2.1Ghz 512kB cache)
7> c(spawntest).
{ok,spawntest}
8> spawntest:serialspawn(1).
6.48313e+5
9> spawntest:serialspawn(10).
6.48131e+5
10> spawntest:serialspawn(10).
6.36188e+5
11> spawntest:serialspawn(100).
6.33489e+5
12> spawntest:serial_spawn(100).
7.06393e+5

I think these fellows might be onto something.

]]> by: Paul Crowley http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes#comment-9868 Mon, 11 Sep 2006 10:16:02 +0000 http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes#comment-9868 <p>malloc and free aren't syscalls - malloc calls sbrk or similar if it needs more memory, but otherwise it manages the heap in userspace. It should have a certain amount of hysteresis before it tries to give any memory back to kernel space, so all the malloc and free stuff should be happening entirely in userspace.</p> <p>Of course being a garbage-collected language it won't be calling malloc and free - it'll be directly calling sbrk or similar (mmap in fact AIUI) and managing the memory returned itself.</p> malloc and free aren’t syscalls - malloc calls sbrk or similar if it needs more memory, but otherwise it manages the heap in userspace. It should have a certain amount of hysteresis before it tries to give any memory back to kernel space, so all the malloc and free stuff should be happening entirely in userspace.

Of course being a garbage-collected language it won’t be calling malloc and free - it’ll be directly calling sbrk or similar (mmap in fact AIUI) and managing the memory returned itself.

]]> by: matthew http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes#comment-9849 Mon, 11 Sep 2006 07:49:16 +0000 http://www.lshift.net/blog/2006/09/10/how-fast-can-erlang-create-processes#comment-9849 <p>My guess is that the kernel time is syscalls to malloc and free for the allocation and deallocation of stack and heap for each process.</p> My guess is that the kernel time is syscalls to malloc and free for the allocation and deallocation of stack and heap for each process.

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