vec_parallel

A library for building vectors in parallel using async tasks.

This crate provides an efficient, executor-agnostic way to construct Vec<T> by dividing the work into multiple async tasks that can run concurrently. It's particularly useful for CPU-bound initialization tasks where elements can be computed independently.

Overview

vec_parallel allows you to parallelize the construction of vectors by splitting the work across multiple async tasks. Each task is responsible for computing a portion of the vector, writing directly to the final memory location to avoid unnecessary copies.

Key Features

• Flexible parallelization strategies: Control task creation with Strategy
• Zero-copy construction: Elements are written directly to their final location
• Executor-agnostic: Works with any async runtime (tokio, async-std, smol, etc.)
• Optional executor integration: Use the some_executor feature for convenient spawning
• WASM support: Works in browser environments with wasm-bindgen
• Safe abstraction: Careful use of unsafe code with documented invariants

Usage Patterns

Basic Usage

use vec_parallel::{build_vec, Strategy};

// Build a vector of squares using multiple tasks
let builder = build_vec(100, Strategy::TasksPerCore(4), |i| i * i);

// Run the tasks (in a real application, these would be spawned on an executor)
for task in builder.tasks {
    test_executors::spin_on(task);
}

// Get the final result
let squares = test_executors::spin_on(builder.result);
assert_eq!(squares[10], 100); // 10² = 100

With Async Executors

use vec_parallel::{build_vec, Strategy};

// With tokio (or any async runtime)
let builder = build_vec(1000, Strategy::TasksPerCore(4), |i| {
    // Expensive computation
    (0..100).map(|j| (i + j) * 2).sum::<usize>()
});

// Spawn tasks on your executor
for task in builder.tasks {
    // In a real app: tokio::spawn(task);
    test_executors::spin_on(task);
}

// Await the result
let result = test_executors::spin_on(builder.result);
assert_eq!(result.len(), 1000);

Choosing a Strategy

The Strategy enum controls how work is divided:

• Strategy::One: No parallelism, single task
• [Strategy::Tasks(n)]: Exactly n tasks
• Strategy::Max: One task per element (maximum parallelism)
• [Strategy::TasksPerCore(n)]: n tasks per CPU core (recommended for CPU-bound work)

Performance Considerations

• For CPU-bound work, use [Strategy::TasksPerCore(4)] to [Strategy::TasksPerCore(8)]
• For I/O-bound work, consider higher task counts
• For small vectors (<100 elements), parallelization overhead may not be worth it
• The library uses atomic operations for synchronization, avoiding locks

Safety

This library uses unsafe code internally for performance, but maintains safety through:

• Non-overlapping slice assignments for each task
• Atomic counters for task completion tracking
• Careful lifetime management with Arc and Weak references
• All unsafe operations are documented with their safety invariants

Optional Features

• some_executor: Enables integration with the some_executor crate for convenient task spawning