[erlang-questions] [erlang-bugs] Recursive Heap Allocation

[Robert Virding]

There is limited flow-control. An io request is sent to an io-server, in this case the default io-server group.erl. The function called by the user waits for a reply from the io-server. The io-server processes the output call, in this case the formatted output, sends it to the port and then replies back to the calling function/process. It does not wait until the output has been sent all the way to user so it can definitely overload the io output.

Robert

----- Original Message -----
> On 07/25/2012 09:36 AM, Joe Armstrong wrote:
> > This program has similar behaviour
> >
> >    -module(bug1).
> >    -compile(export_all).
> >
> >    test(N) ->
> >            io:format("~p~n", [N]),
> >            test(N+1).
> >
> > I  did this:
> >
> > 1 > spawn(fun() -> etop:start() end).
> > 2> bug1:test(0).
> >
> > You can see that user_drv global process is accumulating messages
> > faster than it can handle them.
> > It's in usr_drv:io_request/3.
> >
> > As far as I'm aware io:format did have flow control so this
> > shouldn't happen
> 
> The I/O protocol has no built-in flow control.
> 
> > Now I ran with "erl -smp disable"
> >
> > The counter stays at zero forever.
> 
> With only a single scheduler, it will be alternating between running
> the
> producer process and the consumer processes, but they won't be
> running
> at the same time, so the consumer has a better chance of keeping up.
> The
> number of reductions used per message is the deciding factor, and if
> I
> recall correctly, there's a built-in penalty in reductions when you
> pass
> a message to a process that already has a long queue.
> 
> With multiple schedulers, the producer and the consumer will run on
> separate schedulers, i.e., they run on separate OS threads and
> reduction
> count doesn't matter, only actual time per message. The only thing
> keeping them back a little is the synchronization needed for the
> mailbox. It's not so surprising that it's easier to overload the
> consumer in this case. (Also note that the I/O protocol causes the
> formatting to be done on the receiver side, so if you're printing
> complex terms, you're making the consumer do a lot more work per
> message
> than the producer.)
> 
>      /Richard
> 
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