Re: mapM_ for bytestring

5 Sep 2013

      So, I have written several implementations of mapM_:
     * bsMapM_gen   — generic, works for any monad
     * bsMapM_short — essentially (\f s -> mapM_ f $ unpack s)
     * bsMapM_IO    — hand-written version specifically for IO

Generic and hand-written versions don’t differ much. The overhead
seems to be coming from inlinePerformIO (am I right here? Also, am
I using inlinePerformIO legitimately?), which is only needed when
we’re not in the IO monad.

       {-# SPECIALISE ... IO #-}
       {-# SPECIALISE ... ST #-}
       bsMapM_gen :: Monad m => (Word8 -> m a) -> ByteString -> m ()
       bsMapM_gen f s = unsafePerformIO $ unsafeUseAsCStringLen s mapp
         where
           mapp (ptr, len) = return $ go 0
             where
               go i | i == len  = return ()
                    | otherwise = let !b = inlinePerformIO $
                                           peekByteOff ptr i
                                  in  f b >> go (i+1)

The short version relies on fusion of `unpack` and `mapM_`. Its
advantage is that even when compiled without optimisations, it’s
still fast. (Question: would the same happen to other versions,
when put into Data.ByteString module? I suppose packages like
bytestring are compiled with optimisations, so it probably would.)

       {-# SPECIALISE ... IO #-}
       {-# SPECIALISE ... ST #-}
       bsMapM_shortIO :: (Word8 -> IO a) -> ByteString -> IO ()
       bsMapM_shortIO f s = mapM_ f (unpack s)

Finally, the IO-specialised version. It’s faster than generic
version (and, similarly, an ST-specialised version using
unsafeIOToST would be just as fast), so I assume a SPECIALISE pragma
involving bsMapM_IO and bsMapM_ST should be present.
(Question: are there other monads for which unsafeIOToMonad exists?)

       bsMapM_IO :: (Word8 -> IO a) -> ByteString -> IO ()
       bsMapM_IO f s = unsafeUseAsCStringLen s mapp
         where
           mapp (ptr, len) = go 0
             where
               go i | i == len  = return ()
                    | otherwise = peekByteOff ptr i >>= f >> go (i+1)

A-and here’s a table comparing performance of all three functions.
All timings are in milliseconds.

               ghci       ghc       ghc -O     ghc -O2
           +----------+----------+----------+----------+
     gen   |   380    |    85    |   4.1    |   4.0    |
     short |    45    |    46    |  17.2    |  16.5    |
     IO    |   434    |    92    |   2.4    |   2.4    |
           +----------+----------+----------+----------+

Here’s the code I used. (Question: have I messed up anything?)

       import qualified Data.ByteString as BS
       import Data.Random
       import System.Random
       import System.IO.Unsafe
       import Control.Monad
       import Data.IORef
       import Criterion.Main
       import BSMaps

       --a bytestring consisting of 65536 random bytes
       testCase = BS.pack $ fst $
                  flip sampleState (mkStdGen 8) $
                  replicateM (2^16) stdUniform

       --sums elements of a bytestring, using given mapM_
       sumIO :: ((Word8 -> IO ()) -> BS.ByteString -> IO ()) ->
                BS.ByteString -> Word8
       sumIO f s = unsafePerformIO $ do
         sm <- newIORef 0
         f (modifyIORef' sm . (+)) s
         readIORef sm

       --runs the tests
       main = defaultMain [
         bench "IO"    $ whnf (sumIO bsMapM_IO)    testCase,
         bench "short" $ whnf (sumIO bsMapM_short) testCase,
         bench "gen"   $ whnf (sumIO bsMapM_gen)   testCase]

Finally, if there isn’t anything wrong, what are my next steps to see
this included into next version of bytestring?

Re: mapM_ for bytestring

Artyom Kazak