No. of cores used in any R code? Is lapply true parallel function?

[alpa1412]

I'm exploring the topic of 'Parallel Computing' in R and had a couple of questions as follows:-

• Can we know the number of cores that are being used in any R code? If yes, what is the function/ code for the same?
• Can lapply be termed as a true parallel function (i.e. which makes use of multiple cores)?

Thanks in advance!

[dlsweet]

I looked into this a few years ago so I don't remember all of the specifics; however, I do not believe that lapply is a true parallel function.

When I was looking into parallel computing, the snow and parallel packages had a lot of good information.

The link to the parallel package has information on the number of cores that you are using and this link has good information on how to replace lapply using the snow package to make it truly parallel.

Good luck!

[mishabalyasin]

@alpa1412

Can lapply be termed as a true parallel function (i.e. which makes use of multiple cores)?

Can you clarify what you mean by that question?
Also, take a look at future/furrr packages that make using parallelization much easier. future is an "interface of interfaces", so you can use it with snow, parallel, mclapply, slurm etc.

@alpa1412

Can we know the number of cores that are being used in any R code? If yes, what is the function/ code for the same?

Most of the time you'll see something like availableCores or detectCores or something like that in the code, but there is no way to know for sure how many cores are used by any given function. But can you clarify why that is important for you to know?

[alpa1412]

Thanks for the reply, @mishabalyasin!

In my question around lapply I meant to ask if it can be considered as one of the functions used for parallel computing in R. Here I am referring to parallel computing from the perspective of using more than one core (and not just running a function on multiple elements of a vector simultaneously). Thanks for suggesting the future package! Seems very useful!!

In order to understand the parallel computing better I am actually trying to understand how a general code works in terms of the memory usage. So the other question was asked in this context.

[alpa1412]

Thanks @dlsweet for sharing your thoughts! I'll certainly go through the link and the suggested packages.

[mishabalyasin]

@alpa1412

In my question around lapply I meant to ask if it can be considered as one of the functions used for parallel computing in R

lapply will run sequentially, but presence of lapply in your code often hints at possibility to run your code in parallel. In other words, if your computations take a long time and can be expressed with lapply or map's from purrr, there is a high chance you'll be able to parallelize your code.

@alpa1412

In order to understand the parallel computing better I am actually trying to understand how a general code works in terms of the memory usage. So the other question was asked in this context.

Still not sure what you mean . Perhaps, if you have a concrete example, it'll be easier for me.