semaphore: add worker-pool example

I've commented several times in various forums that basically every
time I've seen the “worker goroutine” pattern in Go, there has turned
out to be a cleaner implementation using semaphores.

This change adds a simple such example. (For more complex usage, I
would generally pair the semaphore with an errgroup.Group.)

Change-Id: Ibf69ee761d14ba59c1acc6a2d595b4fcf0d8f6d6
Reviewed-on: https://go-review.googlesource.com/75170
Reviewed-by: Ross Light <light@google.com>

Author: Bryan C. Mills

semaphore/semaphore_bench_test.go

@@ -4,13 +4,14 @@
 
 // +build go1.7
 
-package semaphore
+package semaphore_test
 
 import (
 	"fmt"
 	"testing"
 
 	"golang.org/x/net/context"
+	"golang.org/x/sync/semaphore"
 )
 
 // weighted is an interface matching a subset of *Weighted.  It allows
@@ -85,7 +86,7 @@ func BenchmarkNewSeq(b *testing.B) {
 	for _, cap := range []int64{1, 128} {
 		b.Run(fmt.Sprintf("Weighted-%d", cap), func(b *testing.B) {
 			for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
-				_ = NewWeighted(cap)
+				_ = semaphore.NewWeighted(cap)
 			}
 		})
 		b.Run(fmt.Sprintf("semChan-%d", cap), func(b *testing.B) {
@@ -116,7 +117,7 @@ func BenchmarkAcquireSeq(b *testing.B) {
 			name string
 			w    weighted
 		}{
-			{"Weighted", NewWeighted(c.cap)},
+			{"Weighted", semaphore.NewWeighted(c.cap)},
 			{"semChan", newSemChan(c.cap)},
 		} {
 			b.Run(fmt.Sprintf("%s-acquire-%d-%d-%d", w.name, c.cap, c.size, c.N), func(b *testing.B) {

semaphore/semaphore_example_test.go

@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+// Copyright 2017 The Go Authors. All rights reserved.
+// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style
+// license that can be found in the LICENSE file.
+
+package semaphore_test
+
+import (
+	"context"
+	"fmt"
+	"log"
+	"runtime"
+
+	"golang.org/x/sync/semaphore"
+)
+
+// Example_workerPool demonstrates how to use a semaphore to limit the number of
+// goroutines working on parallel tasks.
+//
+// This use of a semaphore mimics a typical “worker pool” pattern, but without
+// the need to explicitly shut down idle workers when the work is done.
+func Example_workerPool() {
+	ctx := context.TODO()
+
+	var (
+		maxWorkers = runtime.GOMAXPROCS(0)
+		sem        = semaphore.NewWeighted(int64(maxWorkers))
+		out        = make([]int, 32)
+	)
+
+	// Compute the output using up to maxWorkers goroutines at a time.
+	for i := range out {
+		// When maxWorkers goroutines are in flight, Acquire blocks until one of the
+		// workers finishes.
+		if err := sem.Acquire(ctx, 1); err != nil {
+			log.Printf("Failed to acquire semaphore: %v", err)
+			break
+		}
+
+		go func(i int) {
+			defer sem.Release(1)
+			out[i] = collatzSteps(i + 1)
+		}(i)
+	}
+
+	// Acquire all of the tokens to wait for any remaining workers to finish.
+	//
+	// If you are already waiting for the workers by some other means (such as an
+	// errgroup.Group), you can omit this final Acquire call.
+	if err := sem.Acquire(ctx, int64(maxWorkers)); err != nil {
+		log.Printf("Failed to acquire semaphore: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	fmt.Println(out)
+
+	// Output:
+	// [0 1 7 2 5 8 16 3 19 6 14 9 9 17 17 4 12 20 20 7 7 15 15 10 23 10 111 18 18 18 106 5]
+}
+
+// collatzSteps computes the number of steps to reach 1 under the Collatz
+// conjecture. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collatz_conjecture.)
+func collatzSteps(n int) (steps int) {
+	if n <= 0 {
+		panic("nonpositive input")
+	}
+
+	for ; n > 1; steps++ {
+		if steps < 0 {
+			panic("too many steps")
+		}
+
+		if n%2 == 0 {
+			n /= 2
+			continue
+		}
+
+		const maxInt = int(^uint(0) >> 1)
+		if n > (maxInt-1)/3 {
+			panic("overflow")
+		}
+		n = 3*n + 1
+	}
+
+	return steps
+}

semaphore/semaphore_test.go

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 // Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style
 // license that can be found in the LICENSE file.
 
-package semaphore
+package semaphore_test
 
 import (
 	"math/rand"
@@ -13,11 +13,12 @@ import (
 
 	"golang.org/x/net/context"
 	"golang.org/x/sync/errgroup"
+	"golang.org/x/sync/semaphore"
 )
 
 const maxSleep = 1 * time.Millisecond
 
-func HammerWeighted(sem *Weighted, n int64, loops int) {
+func HammerWeighted(sem *semaphore.Weighted, n int64, loops int) {
 	for i := 0; i < loops; i++ {
 		sem.Acquire(context.Background(), n)
 		time.Sleep(time.Duration(rand.Int63n(int64(maxSleep/time.Nanosecond))) * time.Nanosecond)
@@ -30,7 +31,7 @@ func TestWeighted(t *testing.T) {
 
 	n := runtime.GOMAXPROCS(0)
 	loops := 10000 / n
-	sem := NewWeighted(int64(n))
+	sem := semaphore.NewWeighted(int64(n))
 	var wg sync.WaitGroup
 	wg.Add(n)
 	for i := 0; i < n; i++ {
@@ -51,15 +52,15 @@ func TestWeightedPanic(t *testing.T) {
 			t.Fatal("release of an unacquired weighted semaphore did not panic")
 		}
 	}()
-	w := NewWeighted(1)
+	w := semaphore.NewWeighted(1)
 	w.Release(1)
 }
 
 func TestWeightedTryAcquire(t *testing.T) {
 	t.Parallel()
 
 	ctx := context.Background()
-	sem := NewWeighted(2)
+	sem := semaphore.NewWeighted(2)
 	tries := []bool{}
 	sem.Acquire(ctx, 1)
 	tries = append(tries, sem.TryAcquire(1))
@@ -83,7 +84,7 @@ func TestWeightedAcquire(t *testing.T) {
 	t.Parallel()
 
 	ctx := context.Background()
-	sem := NewWeighted(2)
+	sem := semaphore.NewWeighted(2)
 	tryAcquire := func(n int64) bool {
 		ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(ctx, 10*time.Millisecond)
 		defer cancel()
@@ -113,7 +114,7 @@ func TestWeightedDoesntBlockIfTooBig(t *testing.T) {
 	t.Parallel()
 
 	const n = 2
-	sem := NewWeighted(n)
+	sem := semaphore.NewWeighted(n)
 	{
 		ctx, cancel := context.WithCancel(context.Background())
 		defer cancel()
@@ -132,7 +133,7 @@ func TestWeightedDoesntBlockIfTooBig(t *testing.T) {
 		})
 	}
 	if err := g.Wait(); err != nil {
-		t.Errorf("NewWeighted(%v) failed to AcquireCtx(_, 1) with AcquireCtx(_, %v) pending", n, n+1)
+		t.Errorf("semaphore.NewWeighted(%v) failed to AcquireCtx(_, 1) with AcquireCtx(_, %v) pending", n, n+1)
 	}
 }
 
@@ -143,7 +144,7 @@ func TestLargeAcquireDoesntStarve(t *testing.T) {
 
 	ctx := context.Background()
 	n := int64(runtime.GOMAXPROCS(0))
-	sem := NewWeighted(n)
+	sem := semaphore.NewWeighted(n)
 	running := true
 
 	var wg sync.WaitGroup