[erlang-questions] logical_processors_available unknown on mac

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

On 19/02/16 12:46 am, Alin Popa wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 1:25 PM, Alin Popa <alin.popa@REDACTED 
> <mailto:alin.popa@REDACTED>> wrote:
>
>         I was recently trying to use
>         `erlang:system_info(logical_processors_available).` on my mac,
>         and getting `unknown` atom back; anyone has any idea if this
>         is really by design?
>

  | head
% sysctl -a | grep cpu | head
hw.ncpu = 4
hw.cpufrequency = 3200000000
to= 4
hw.ncpu: 4
hw.activecpu: 4
hw.physicalcpu: 4
hw.physicalcpu_max: 4
hw.logicalcpu: 4
hw.logicalcpu_max: 4
hw.cputype: 7

You can get at this with, e.g.,
     int ans; size_t anslen = sizeof ans;
     sysctlbyname("hw.activecpu", &ans, &anslen, 0, 0)
For that matter,
     sysconf(_SC_NPROCESSORS_ONLN)
and
     sysconf(_SC_NPROCESSORS_CONF)
are supported.


  *   hw.activecpu              - The number of processors currently 
available for executing threads.
  *                               Use this number to determine the 
number threads to create in SMP aware applications.
  *                               This number can change when power 
management modes are changed.

There are so many ways to count the number of CPUs on a Mac.
I suspect that hw.activecpu is the one to use; if it isn't, then
hw.logicalcpu may be the one.