Go Pipelines

Internal

• Go Channels

Overview

A pipeline is a data processing pattern, aimed at processing streams of data. A pipeline consists of a series of stages. The output of a stage is connected to the input of the subsequent stage, unless they happen to be the first and last stage. The input of the first stage is the input of the pipeline. The output of the last stage is the output of the pipeline. The pipeline pattern is powerful because it offers separation of concerns: each stage can implement a different concern. Thus, stages can be modified independently of one another, the stages can be mixed and matched, arranged in fan-out and fan-out topologies, etc.

Stage

A stage has the following two properties:

1. A stage consumes and returns the same type.
2. A stage must be reified by the language so that it may be passed around.

Reification means that the language exposes a concept to the developers so they can work with it directly. Examples: functions, classes.

Stages can be combined at a higher level without modifying the stages themselves.

Stages are capable of safely processing stream elements concurrently. A stage reads stream data from a concurrent-safe input and sends it on a concurrent-safe output. This arrangement allows stages to execute independently of one another.

The first stage of a pipeline, which reads the input that consists of discrete value from a source and converts it into stream elements is called generator.

Stream

A stream consists of elements, which are processed one at a time by stages.

Go Pipeline

Go Pipeline Stage

Each stage consists of an (externally) read-only output channel and an internal thread pump that invokes an element-processing function. The stream elements to be processed by the stage are read from a read-only input channel, which usually belongs to the preceding stage in the pipeline. Each element is processed by the element-processing function and the result is written on the stage's output channel. The stage also reads from the done channel, which makes stages to be interconnected in two ways: by the channels that are passed in the subsequent stages of the pipeline and by the done channel. The role of the done channel is to allow us to force the pipeline stages to terminate regardless of the state the pipeline stage is in - waiting on the incoming channel or waiting to send. Closing the done channel will force the pipeline stage to terminate.

The Stage struct looks like this:

// Stage is a structure representing a pipeline stage. It contains its own output stream, an externally read-only
// channel that is used to send the elements processed by the stage out, and a "thread pump" that pulls elements
// from the input channel, processes them by invoking the element processor function on them, and then sends them
// on the output channel. The stage is preemptable via the "done" channel.
type Stage struct {
	name             string
	done             <-chan interface{}
	in               <-chan int // the read only input stream, it is external, and usually belongs to the preceding Stage 
	out              <-chan int // the externally read only output stream, it is created by the Stage
	elementProcessor func(e int) int
}

The Stage constructor defines the "thread pump" behavior, in the form of an anonymous function. Among other things, the function closes the out channel when it is not needed anymore. Also, the goroutine exists when something gets written on the done, as an embodiment of the pattern described in the Preventing Goroutines Leak section.

func NewStage(name string, done <-chan interface{}, precedingStage *Stage, elementProcessor func(e <some_type>) <some_type>) *Stage {
	out := make(chan <some_type>)
	stage := &Stage{
		name:             name,
		done:             done,
		in:               precedingStage.out, // the preceding stage also exposes a chan <some_type>
		out:              out,
		elementProcessor: elementProcessor,
	}
	// create and start the thread pump that reads from the input stream, processes elements with
	// the element processor function and writes them on the output stream
	go func() {
		// close the stage when it's done processing all input elements
		defer close(out)
		// iterate over input elements
		for e := range stage.in {
			select {
			case <-done:
				return // the stage may be forcibly closed by writing the "done" channel
			case out <- elementProcessor(e):
			}
		}
	}()
	return stage
}

Generators

The first stage of the pipeline must read elements from somewhere (a slice, a channel, etc.) and write them to its out channel. We call this kind of stage a generator. The generator is also a Stage but with a nil input stream.

func NewGenerator(name string, done <-chan interface{}, input []<some_type>) *Stage {
	out := make(chan <some_type>)
	stage := &Stage{
		name: name,
		done: done,
		out:  out,
	}
	// create and start the thread pump that reads from the input slice and writes them on the output stream
	go func() {
		// close the stage when it's done processing all input elements
		defer close(outputStream)
		// iterate over input elements
		for _, e := range input {
			select {
			case <-done:
				return // the stage may be forcibly closed by writing the "done" channel
			case out <- e:
			}
		}
	}()
	return stage
}

The Assembled Pipeline

multiplicator := func(e int) int {
	return e * 2
}
additor := func(e int) int {
	return e + 1
}

done := make(chan interface{})
defer close(done)

gs := NewGenerator("generator", done, []int{1, 2, 3, 4})
ms := NewStage("multiplicator A", done, gs, multiplicator)
as := NewStage("additor", done, ms, additor)
ms2 := NewStage("multiplicator B", done, as, multiplicator)

for i := range ms2.out {
	fmt.Printf("%d\n", i)
}