# Parallel Scan Operations¶

This section contains an exercise file RAJA/exercises/scan.cpp for you to work through if you wish to get some practice with RAJA. The file RAJA/exercises/scan_solution.cpp contains complete working code for the examples discussed in this section. You can use the solution file to check your work and for guidance if you get stuck. To build the exercises execute make scan and make scan_solution from the build directory.

Key RAJA features shown in this section are:

• RAJA::inclusive_scan, RAJA::inclusive_scan_inplace, RAJA::exclusive_scan, and RAJA::exclusive_scan_inplace operations and execution policies
• RAJA operators for different types of scans; e.g., plus, minimum, maximum, etc.

In this section, we present examples of various RAJA scan operations using multiple RAJA execution back-ends. Different scan operations can be performed by passing different RAJA operators to the RAJA scan template methods. Each operator is a template type, where the template argument is the type of the values it operates on. For a summary of RAJA scan functionality, please see Scan Operations.

Note

RAJA scan operations use the same execution policy types that RAJA::forall kernel execution templates do.

Note

RAJA scan operations take ‘span’ arguments to express the sequential index range of array entries used in the scan. Typically, these span objects are created using the RAJA::make_span method as shown in the examples below.

Each of the examples below uses the same integer arrays for input and output values. We initialize the input array and print its values as such:

//
// Define array length
//
constexpr int N = 20;

//
// Allocate and initialize vector data
//
int* in = memoryManager::allocate<int>(N);
int* out = memoryManager::allocate<int>(N);

std::iota(in, in + N, -1);

std::cout << "\n in values...\n";
printArray(in, N);
std::cout << "\n";


This generates the following sequence of values. This sequence will be used as the ‘in’ array for each of the following examples.:

-1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18


## Inclusive Scans¶

RAJA’s scan operations are standalone operations. That is, they cannot be combined with other operations in a kernel. A sequential inclusive scan operation can be executed like so:

  RAJA::inclusive_scan<RAJA::seq_exec>(RAJA::make_span(in, N),
RAJA::make_span(out, N));


Since no operator is passed to the scan method, the default ‘plus’ operation is applied and the result generated in the ‘out’ array is a prefix-sum based on the ‘in’ array. The resulting ‘out’ array contains the values:

-1 -1 0 2 5 9 14 20 27 35 44 54 65 77 90 104 119 135 152 170


In particular, each entry in the output array is a partial sum of all input array entries up to that array index.

We can be explicit about the operation used in the scan by passing the RAJA ‘plus’ operator RAJA::operators::plus<int> to the scan method:

  RAJA::inclusive_scan<RAJA::seq_exec>(RAJA::make_span(in, N),
RAJA::make_span(out, N),
RAJA::operators::plus<int>{});


The result in the ‘out’ array is the same as above.

An inclusive parallel scan operation using OpenMP multithreading is accomplished similarly by replacing the execution policy type:

  RAJA::inclusive_scan<RAJA::omp_parallel_for_exec>(RAJA::make_span(in, N),
RAJA::make_span(out, N),
RAJA::operators::plus<int>{});


As expected, this produces the same result as the previous two examples.

As is commonly the case with RAJA, the only difference between this code and the previous one is the execution policy. If we want to run the scan on a GPU using CUDA, we would use a CUDA execution policy as is shown in examples below.

Note

If no operator is passed to a RAJA scan operation, the default plus operator is used, resulting in a prefix-sum.

## Exclusive Scans¶

A sequential exclusive scan (plus) operation is performed by:

  RAJA::exclusive_scan<RAJA::seq_exec>(RAJA::make_span(in, N),
RAJA::make_span(out, N),
RAJA::operators::plus<int>{});


This generates the following sequence of values in the output array:

0 -1 -1 0 2 5 9 14 20 27 35 44 54 65 77 90 104 119 135 152


The result of an exclusive scan is similar to the result of an inclusive scan, but differs in two ways. First, the first entry in the exclusive scan output array is the identity of the operator used. In the example here, it is zero, since the operator is ‘plus’. Second, the output sequence is shifted one position to the right when compared to an inclusive scan.

Note

The identity of an operator is the default value of a given type for that operation. For example: - The identity of an int for a sum operation is 0. - The identity of an int for a maximum operation is -2147483648.

Running the same scan operation on a GPU using CUDA is done by:

  RAJA::exclusive_scan<RAJA::cuda_exec<CUDA_BLOCK_SIZE>>(
RAJA::make_span(in, N),
RAJA::make_span(out, N),
RAJA::operators::plus<int>{});


Note that we pass the number of threads per CUDA thread block as the template argument to the CUDA execution policy as we do when using RAJA::forall.

## In-place Scans and Other Operators¶

In-place scan variants generate the same results as the scan operations we have just described. However, the result is generated in the input array directly so only one array is passed to in-place scan methods.

Here is a sequential inclusive in-place scan that uses the ‘minimum’ operator:

  std::copy_n(in, N, out);

RAJA::inclusive_scan_inplace<RAJA::seq_exec>(RAJA::make_span(out, N),
RAJA::operators::minimum<int>{});


Note that, before the scan operation is invoked, we copy the input array into the output array to provide the scan input array we want.

This generates the following sequence in the output array:

-1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1


Since the operator used in the scan is ‘minimum’ and the smallest values in the input array is the first entry, the result is an array with that value in all array slots.

Here is a sequential exclusive in-place scan that uses the ‘maximum’ operator:

  RAJA::exclusive_scan_inplace<RAJA::seq_exec>(RAJA::make_span(out, N),
RAJA::operators::maximum<int>{});


This generates the following sequence in the output array:

-2147483648 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17


Since it is an exclusive scan, the first value in the result is the negative of the max int value, which is the identity of the ‘maximum’ operator.

As you may expect at this point, running an exclusive in-place prefix-sum operation using OpenMP is accomplished by:

  RAJA::exclusive_scan_inplace<RAJA::omp_parallel_for_exec>(
RAJA::make_span(out, N),
RAJA::operators::plus<int>{});


This generates the following sequence in the output array (as we saw earlier):

0 -1 -1 0 2 5 9 14 20 27 35 44 54 65 77 90 104 119 135 152


and the only difference is the execution policy template parameter.

Lastly, we show a parallel inclusive in-place prefix-sum operation using CUDA:

  RAJA::inclusive_scan_inplace<RAJA::cuda_exec<CUDA_BLOCK_SIZE>>(
RAJA::make_span(out, N),
RAJA::operators::plus<int>{});


and the same using the RAJA HIP back-end:

  RAJA::inclusive_scan_inplace<RAJA::hip_exec<HIP_BLOCK_SIZE>>(
RAJA::make_span(d_out, N),
RAJA::operators::plus<int>{});