[erlang-questions] Heap alloc error in lists:foldl/3

[Arif Ishaq]

Hi,

I'm a newbie, playing with a toy programme to see how parallel processing works in Erlang.

The goal is to calculate the value of pi using Leibnitz series. The function pi/2 takes as arguments the number of processes, Np, and the number of terms handled by each process, Nt.

The machine is an HP workstation with Windows Vista Enterprise.


Here's the code:

   -module(pp).
   -compile(export_all).

   %% calculate PI using Np parallel processes, each calculating Nt terms of the
   %% Liebnitz series

   pi(Np, Nt) ->
       Collector = spawn(?MODULE, collect, [Np, self()]),

       [spawn_opt(
          fun() ->  Collector ! foldsum((N-1)*Nt, N*Nt -1) end  %% if I use sum, instead of foldsum, everything is ok
         ) || N <- lists:seq(1,Np)],

       receive
        Result ->
            io:format("result is ~p~n", [4 * Result])
       end.


   sum(Kfrom, Kto) ->
       sum (Kfrom, Kto, 0).

   sum(Kfrom, Kto, Sum) when Kfrom =:= Kto ->
       Sum;
   sum(Kfrom, Kto, Sum) ->
       sum(Kfrom+1, Kto, Sum + contribution(Kfrom)).


   foldsum(Kfrom, Kto) ->
       lists:foldl(
         fun(K, Sum) -> Sum + contribution(K) end,
         0,
         lists:seq(Kfrom,Kto)).


   contribution(K) ->
       Value = 1 / (2 * K + 1),
       case K rem 2 of
        0 ->
            Value;
        1 ->
            -Value
       end.


   collect (Np, For) ->
       collect(Np, For, 0, 0).

   collect (Np, For, Ncollected, Sum) when Np =:= Ncollected ->
       For ! Sum;
   collect(Np, For, Ncollected, Sum) ->
       receive
        R ->
            collect(Np, For, Ncollected + 1, Sum + R)
       end.



If I try to calculate pi using 16 processes, each processing 1 million terms, the result is ok.
If, on the other hand, I try with 10 million terms each, erlang crashes.
Even after closing the werl window, the process keeps running and has to be killed brutally.


Erlang R15B (erts-5.9) [smp:4:4] [async-threads:0]

Eshell V5.9  (abort with ^G)
1> c(pp).
{ok,pp}
2> pp:pi(16,1000000).
result is 3.1415925910897737
ok
3> pp:pi(16,10000000).

Crash dump was written to: erl_crash.dump
eheap_alloc: Cannot allocate 40121760 bytes of memory (of type "heap").


Abnormal termination

If I try to read the crash dump with the crash dump viewer tool, I get an error saying the file is not an erlang crash dump:
erl_crash.dump is not an Erlang crash dump


Why is this happening? Shouldn't foldl be tail recursive? Is this a bug? Or am I doing something wrong?


Thanks and best regards
Arif Ishaq


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