Subject: Re: [boost] interest in structure of arrays container?
From: Oswin Krause (Oswin.Krause_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-10-15 06:15:16
On 2016-10-15 10:14, Michael Marcin wrote:
> On 10/14/2016 11:32 PM, degski wrote:
>> On 15 October 2016 at 05:43, Michael Marcin <mike.marcin_at_[hidden]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Does this already exist somewhere?
>>>
>>
>> Take a look at Boost.DoubleEnded 1 <http://erenon.hu/double_ended/>
>> and see
>> whether boost::double_ended::batch_deque
>> <http://erenon.hu/double_ended/double_ended/design_rationale.html#double_ended.design_rationale.batch_deque>
>> fills all of your requirements.
>>
>
>
> Sorry I think I wasn't clear.
>
> Let me back up a bit and give some examples.
>
> Arrays of Structures is the normal programming model.
>
> Let's take a toy example, say I'm looking at some census data and have
> a structure that looks like:
>
> struct citizen_t {
> string first_name;
> string last_name;
> int salary;
> int age;
> };
>
> Then the Array of Structures container would be:
> vector<citizen_t> aos_citizens;
>
> The Structure of Arrays version of the same data would look like:
>
> struct soa_citizens_t {
> vector<string> first_names;
> vector<string> last_names;
> vector<int> salary;
> vector<int> age;
> };
>
> soa_citizens_t soa_citizens;
Hi,
We implemented something similar for our software. Our usecase was:
"when we have a batch of inputs to process, what is the most efficient
way to store them such that we can process them with a fast batch
algorithm". For example a batch of vectors is a matrix with vectors
stored row-wise (and sparse vectors are a sparse matrix). Similarly, if
we have pairs of inputs and outputs a batch of those pairs are pairs of
batches, tuples of batches, etc.
The problem starts when we look at "how do i get an element from a
batch?". A matrix-row is not the same as a vector. Moreover, it is
unnatural to see a matrix as "batch of rows" (e.g. why not "batch of
columns"?) and thus we likely do not have a way to get a row using op[]
or iterate over its rows. It becomes only more complicated when looking
at a pair of vectors example (a single element of that would be a pair
of two matrix-rows) etc.
Even after some working on this, we have not really found a stable and
"good" solution that does not involve massive amounts of preprocessor
boilerplate and massive use of traits classes.
I would like to see your take on this, maybe this could give us some way
to improve our work!
Best,
Oswin