Intel Software Network articles feed http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-kb/technical-notes/ en-us Intel® Threading Building Blocks - Threading performance and correctness analysis Intel® Threading Building Blocks provides a rich library of generic constructs to help you write scalable parallel programs. This set of generic constructs includes parallel control flow structures (parallel_for, parallel_reduce, parallel_do, pipeline and others), concurrent containers (hash-maps, vectors, queues), and a basic set of low overhead synchronization primitives (read-write lock, queuing mutex, and spin-locks). Use Intel Threading Building Blocks to help you create high-performance scalable software that can run on many cores.

Threading introduces a variety of errors and performance issues that are not encountered in sequential software including data-races and dead-locks. Due to the inherent complexity of threading, isolating performance and correctness problems is difficult without the right software tools. The Intel® Threading Analysis Tools can detect errors and performance issues, helping you to simplify the process of debugging and tuning for multi-core processors. Intel Threading Building Blocks is designed to work well with the other Intel Threading Analysis Tools.

Intel Threading Analysis Tools include:
  • Intel® Thread Checker - Detects thread-correctness issues including data-races, dead-locks, and threads stalls. Use it to verify the correctness of your multi-threaded code.
  • Intel® Thread Profiler - Analyzes threading performance and lets you visualize thread interactions. Use it to identify threading performance bottlenecks and trace them down to the source code.

Intel Threading Tools can track threading events for applications that use native operating system threads and synchronization primitives (Win32* API or POSIX* threads) and OpenMP* directives. Intel Threading Analysis Tools also provide a special API for marking user-defined synchronization objects. Intel TBB uses this custom API, so you can effectively analyze and correct your multi-threaded applications using Intel Threading Analysis Tools.

To set up your system for threading performance and correctness analysis, do the following:

  1. Install Intel Threading Tools version 3.0 or higher, and follow the links for complete installation information and system requirements:
  2. Intel Thread Checker
  3. Intel Thread Profiler
  4. Create an Intel Thread Checker or Thread Profiler Activity within VTune™ Performance Environment that launches the application you developed using Intel Threading Building Blocks.

    Note: If this is your first time using Intel Threading Tools, read the Getting Started Guide for the tools:
  5. Intel Thread Checker Getting Started Guide
  6. Intel Thread Profiler Getting Started Guide
  7. Run the activity.
  8. Analyze results.

 

Note: Intel Threading Tools Graphical User Interface (GUI) is available for Windows* only. Command line versions are available to collect data on Linux*. You can always view the results from the GUI on a Windows* system.

Tip: The Intel Threading Building Blocks library initialization requires the creation of a task_scheduler_init object by each of the non-pool threads that might request Intel TBB work. If library components are used before this initialization occurs, your program will probably crash and burn very quickly.

For complete information about performance and correctness analysis with Intel Threading Tools please refer to the following documents:

 

]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-threading-performance-and-correctness-analysis Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:38:00 -0800 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-threading-performance-and-correctness-analysis#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-threading-performance-and-correctness-analysis Intel® Threading Building Blocks Knowledge Base Intel® Threading Building Blocks - Product Features

Intel® Threading Building Blocks is a runtime library providing a parallel programming model for C++ code using threads. It comprises a template-based collection of components designed to simplify the process of multi-core programming. Use Intel Threading Building Blocks to write scalable applications that:

  • focus on independent or semi-dependent tasks instead of thread management
  • emphasize generic data parallel programming
  • take advantage of concurrent collections and parallel algorithms
The major features of Intel® Threading Building Blocks include:
  • Task scheduler that interoperates with native threads and OpenMP.
  • Generic parallel algorithms: parallel for, reduce, scan (prefix), do, pipeline, sort.
  • Generic, concurrent, thread-safe containers: hash table, vector, queue.
  • Type-Safe Atomic Operations: read, write, fetch-and-store, fetch-and-add, compare-and-swap
  • Exception-Safe Locks: spin lock, reader-writer mutex, queuing mutex, OS-wrappers
  • Cross-Thread Timers
  • Supports Windows*, Linux*, and Mac OS*
  • Supports 32-bit applications on IA-32 and Intel® 64 technology platforms, and 64-bit applications on Itanium® 2 and Intel® 64 platforms
  • Supports Intel, Microsoft* and GNU Compilers
 
]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-product-features Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-product-features#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-product-features Parallel Programming Open Source Tools Intel Software Network communities Intel® Threading Building Blocks Knowledge Base Intel® Threading Building Blocks - Setting up the environment

Before using Intel® Threading Building Blocks for the first time, you must configure the environment variables that are used to locate necessary library and include files.


Registering Environment Variables for Windows* Systems

Locate the configuration scripts (tbbvars.bat) for your operating system. The scripts are located in the bin directory. The default location of the bin directory on Windows is the following:

C:\Program Files\Intel\TBB\2.1\[ia32|em64t]<vc-version>

where <vc-version> matches the Microsoft* Visual C/C++ version used.  In addition, the Intel TBB Extras download site provides a plug-in for several Microsoft Visual Studio* versions that configures VS to compile and link with Intel TBB.

Registering Environment Variables for MacOS* Systems

Registering Environment Variables for Linux* Systems

Locate the configuration scripts (tbbvars.csh or tbbvars.sh) in the appropriate installation bin directory.  The default location of the bin directory on Linux systems is:

/opt/intel/tbb/2.1/[ia32|em64t|itanium]/<architecture-specific>

 <architecture-specific> is a long name that encodes the gcc, libc and kernel versions used.
]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-setting-up-the-environment Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-setting-up-the-environment#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-setting-up-the-environment Intel® Threading Building Blocks Knowledge Base Intel® Threading Building Blocks - Product liveness test

After you installed Intel® Threading Building Blocks on your computer you may want to check if it got set up properly. Product liveness test fibonacci may be used for this purpose. This test program covers every major aspect of the library. Follow the instructions below to run liveness test.

Note: Similar instructions will work for other product samples.


How to Run Examples on Linux* or Mac OS* Systems

  1. Install the software (e.g., into <installdir>).
  2. Set up the environment in your shell.
    For sh/bash/ksh: <installdir>/bin/tbbvars.sh
    For csh/tcsh: source <installdir>/bin/tbbvars.csh Note: Always source the tbbvars.* scripts by using one of the above commands; do not execute them directly. This step is only required once per shell window used.
  3. Compile and run an example (e.g., <installdir>/examples/test_all/fibonacci).
cd <installdir>/examples/test_all/fibonacci
make

How to Run Examples on Windows* Systems when Using Visual Studio*

Note: This example uses Visual Studio* .NET 2003. However, Visual Studio 2005 is similarly supported (using the same vc7.1 examples).

  1. Install the software (e.g., into <installdir>).
    Note: it is strongly recommended that you check the checkbox, during the install, to register environment variables.
  2. Open a command-prompt (cmd.exe) window that has the right environment defined for using Visual Studio*. For example, click Start and then use Programs » Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 » Visual Studio .NET Tools » Visual Studio .NET 2003 Command Prompt.
  3. Exit Visual Studio, if it is currently running.
  4. If you did not check the checkbox, during the install, to register environment variables, then set up the environment in your shell.
    <installdir>{ia32,em64t}vc7.1
]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-product-liveness-test Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-product-liveness-test#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-product-liveness-test Intel® Threading Building Blocks Knowledge Base Intel® Threading Building Blocks - Tutorial [PDF]

A detailed tutorial covering the use of all the major features of Intel® Threading Building Blocks. The major sections include:

  • Parallelizing Simple Loops
  • Parallelizing Complex Loops
  • Containers
  • Mutual Exclusion
  • Atomic Operations
  • Timing
  • Memory Allocation
  • Task Scheduling


icon Tutorial for Intel® Threading Building Blocks [PDF]
File Name: Tutorial.pdf
Size: 351,480 bytes
Version: 1.5

Note: PDF Files require Adobe Acrobat* Reader†



† This link will take you off of the Intel Web site. Intel does not control the content of the destination Web Site.

]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-tutorial-pdf Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-tutorial-pdf#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-tutorial-pdf Intel® Threading Building Blocks Knowledge Base Intel® Threading Building Blocks - Release notes [PDF]

Key product information for this release:

  • What's New
  • System Requirements
  • Known Issues
  • Technical Support
  • Related Products and Services

icon Release Notes [PDF]
File Name: 312687.pdf
Size: 13,671 bytes
Date: 7/22/2008
Version: 2.1

Note: PDF Files require Adobe Acrobat* Reader†



† This link will take you off of the Intel Web site. Intel does not control the content of the destination Web Site.

]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-release-notes-pdf Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-release-notes-pdf#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-release-notes-pdf Intel® Threading Building Blocks Knowledge Base Intel® Threading Building Blocks - Reference [PDF]

A complete, detailed reference manual for all the functions and interfaces provided by Intel® Threading Building Blocks. The major sections include:

  • Algorithms
  • Containers
  • Memory Allocation
  • Synchronization
  • Timing
  • Task Scheduling


icon Reference for Intel® Threading Building Blocks [PDF]
File Name: Reference.pdf
Size: 699,564 bytes
Version: 1.5

Note: PDF Files require Adobe Acrobat* Reader†



† This link will take you off of the Intel Web site. Intel does not control the content of the destination Web Site.

]]> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-reference-pdf Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700 http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-reference-pdf#comments http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-threading-building-blocks-reference-pdf Intel® Threading Building Blocks Knowledge Base