Combining two lists by key using Thrust

Question

Given two key-value lists, I am trying to combine the two sides by matching the keys and applying a function to the two values when the keys match. In my case I want to mult

Answer 1

Well, I'm not sure this is the best method (@m.s. usually comes up with better approaches than I), but one possible approach would be (method 1):

1. set_intersection_by_key(Left,Right)
2. set_intersection_by_key(Right,Left)
3. Take the values outputs from step 1 and step 2, and perform a transform on them to multiply the values results together (or whatever other mathematical operation you'd like to perform on the corresponding values results from step 1 and step 2).

I don't know what your skill level is with thrust but I can provide a trivial worked example of the above if desired.

Another possible approach (method 2):

1. merge_by_key the two lists together
2. Perform a transform using two versions of the resultant list from step 1: The first consisting of [first, last-1) and the second consisting of [first+1, last). This will require a special functor that takes a zipped version of the keys and values, and compares the two keys presented. If it is a match, output the desired mathematical operation on the two presented values; if it is not a match, output some kind of marker or known illegal value. (If such an illegal value is impossible to construct, we can zip a 3rd marker array in if needed.)
3. Do a remove_if on the output of step 2, to compact the result down to the desired result, removing all value entries that are illegal, or else removing all value entries that are indicated by the marker array.

My sense is the second method might be faster, but I haven't carefully thought through it. In any event, it's better to benchmark test cases than to work off of (my) intuition.

Based on a comment below, here is a description of what is happening starting with the 2nd step of method 2, using your example dataset:

The output of step 1 (the merge_by_key operation) would look like something like this:

keys:   { 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 };
values: { 3, 2, 4, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 1, 1, 2 };

Let's construct two versions, the first being "the item" and the second being "the next item to the right":

keys1:   { 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6 };
values1: { 3, 2, 4, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 1, 1 };

keys2:   { 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 };
values2: { 2, 4, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 1, 1, 2 };

The actual "construction" is trivial. keys1 is just [keys.begin(), keys.end()-1), and keys2 is just [keys.begin()+1, keys.end()). And likewise for values1 and values2.

We'll zip keys1 and values1 together and we'll zip keys2 and values2 together. Then we'll pass these two zipped entities to a transform operation that has a special functor that will do the following:

If keys1 == keys2, do the desired math operation on the values1 and values2 quantities, and place a one in the marker array. If not, place a 0 in a marker array. The output of this operation would be:

 keys:   { 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 };
 values: { 6, 4, 1, 1, 1, 8, 4, 1, 1, 2 };
 marker: { 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0 };

Now zip the 3 vectors above together, and pass that to remove_if. The remove_if functor would indicate removal of any items for which marker == 0, leaving:

 keys:   { 1, 4, 5, 6 };
 values: { 6, 1, 8, 1 };
 marker: { 1, 1, 1, 1 };

Here is a fully worked example demonstrating both methods:

$ cat t1007.cu
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 

struct mark_mpy_func
{
  template 
  __host__ __device__
  int operator()(T1 &z1, T2 &z2){
    int res = 0;
    if (thrust::get<0>(z1) == thrust::get<0>(z2)){
      res = thrust::get<1>(z1) * thrust::get<1>(z2);
      thrust::get<2>(z1) = 1;}
    return res;
    }
};

struct mtest_func
{
  __host__ __device__
  bool operator()(int t){
    if (t == 0) return true;
    return false;
    }
};

int main(){

  int Lkeys[] =   { 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 };
  int Lvals[] =   { 3, 4, 1, 2, 1 };
  int Rkeys[] =   { 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 };
  int Rvals[] =   { 2, 1, 1, 4, 1, 2 };

  size_t Lsize = sizeof(Lkeys)/sizeof(int);
  size_t Rsize = sizeof(Rkeys)/sizeof(int);

  thrust::device_vector Lkeysv(Lkeys, Lkeys+Lsize);
  thrust::device_vector Lvalsv(Lvals, Lvals+Lsize);
  thrust::device_vector Rkeysv(Rkeys, Rkeys+Rsize);
  thrust::device_vector Rvalsv(Rvals, Rvals+Rsize);

  // method 1

  thrust::device_vector Lkeysvo(Lsize);
  thrust::device_vector Lvalsvo(Lsize);
  thrust::device_vector Rkeysvo(Rsize);
  thrust::device_vector Rvalsvo(Rsize);

  size_t Lsizeo = thrust::set_intersection_by_key(Lkeysv.begin(), Lkeysv.end(), Rkeysv.begin(), Rkeysv.end(), Lvalsv.begin(), Lkeysvo.begin(), Lvalsvo.begin()).first - Lkeysvo.begin();
  size_t Rsizeo = thrust::set_intersection_by_key(Rkeysv.begin(), Rkeysv.end(), Lkeysv.begin(), Lkeysv.end(), Rvalsv.begin(), Rkeysvo.begin(), Rvalsvo.begin()).first - Rkeysvo.begin();

  assert(Lsizeo == Rsizeo);
  thrust::device_vector res1(Lsizeo);
  thrust::transform(Lvalsvo.begin(), Lvalsvo.begin()+Lsizeo, Rvalsvo.begin(), res1.begin(), thrust::multiplies());

  std::cout << "Method 1 result:" << std::endl << "keys: ";
  thrust::copy_n(Lkeysvo.begin(), Lsizeo, std::ostream_iterator(std::cout, ","));
  std::cout << std::endl << "vals: ";
  thrust::copy_n(res1.begin(), Lsizeo, std::ostream_iterator(std::cout, ","));
  std::cout << std::endl;

  // method 2

  thrust::device_vector Mkeysv(Lsize + Rsize);
  thrust::device_vector Mvalsv(Lsize + Rsize);

  thrust::merge_by_key(Lkeysv.begin(), Lkeysv.end(), Rkeysv.begin(), Rkeysv.end(), Lvalsv.begin(), Rvalsv.begin(), Mkeysv.begin(), Mvalsv.begin());
  thrust::device_vector marker(Lsize + Rsize - 1);
  thrust::device_vector res2(Lsize + Rsize - 1);
  thrust::transform(thrust::make_zip_iterator(thrust::make_tuple(Mkeysv.begin(), Mvalsv.begin(), marker.begin())), thrust::make_zip_iterator(thrust::make_tuple(Mkeysv.end()-1, Mvalsv.end()-1, marker.end())), thrust::make_zip_iterator(thrust::make_tuple(Mkeysv.begin()+1, Mvalsv.begin()+1)), res2.begin(), mark_mpy_func());
  size_t rsize2 = thrust::remove_if(thrust::make_zip_iterator(thrust::make_tuple( Mkeysv.begin(), res2.begin())), thrust::make_zip_iterator(thrust::make_tuple(Mkeysv.end()-1, res2.end())), marker.begin(), mtest_func()) - thrust::make_zip_iterator(thrust::make_tuple(Mkeysv.begin(), res2.begin()));
  std::cout << "Method 2 result:" << std::endl << "keys: ";
  thrust::copy_n(Mkeysv.begin(), rsize2, std::ostream_iterator(std::cout, ","));
  std::cout << std::endl << "vals: ";
  thrust::copy_n(res2.begin(), rsize2, std::ostream_iterator(std::cout, ","));
  std::cout << std::endl;


  return 0;
}

$ nvcc -o t1007 t1007.cu
$ ./t1007
Method 1 result:
keys: 1,4,5,6,
vals: 6,1,8,1,
Method 2 result:
keys: 1,4,5,6,
vals: 6,1,8,1,
$

If it is acceptable to use a marker value (say, -1) in the output data to inform the remove_if operation, then the separate marker array can be dispensed with. Here's a modified version of method 2 that works this way:

$ cat t1007.cu
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 

#define MARK_VAL -1

struct mark_mpy_func
{
  template 
  __host__ __device__
  int operator()(T1 &z1, T2 &z2){
    int res = MARK_VAL;
    if (thrust::get<0>(z1) == thrust::get<0>(z2)){
      res = thrust::get<1>(z1) * thrust::get<1>(z2);}
    return res;
    }
};

struct mtest_func
{
  template 
  __host__ __device__
  bool operator()(T t){
    if (thrust::get<1>(t) == MARK_VAL) return true;
    return false;
    }
};

int main(){

  int Lkeys[] =   { 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 };
  int Lvals[] =   { 3, 4, 1, 2, 1 };
  int Rkeys[] =   { 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 };
  int Rvals[] =   { 2, 1, 1, 4, 1, 2 };

  size_t Lsize = sizeof(Lkeys)/sizeof(int);
  size_t Rsize = sizeof(Rkeys)/sizeof(int);

  thrust::device_vector Lkeysv(Lkeys, Lkeys+Lsize);
  thrust::device_vector Lvalsv(Lvals, Lvals+Lsize);
  thrust::device_vector Rkeysv(Rkeys, Rkeys+Rsize);
  thrust::device_vector Rvalsv(Rvals, Rvals+Rsize);

  // method 2

  thrust::device_vector Mkeysv(Lsize + Rsize);
  thrust::device_vector Mvalsv(Lsize + Rsize);

  thrust::merge_by_key(Lkeysv.begin(), Lkeysv.end(), Rkeysv.begin(), Rkeysv.end(), Lvalsv.begin(), Rvalsv.begin(), Mkeysv.begin(), Mvalsv.begin());
  thrust::device_vector res2(Lsize + Rsize - 1);
  thrust::transform(thrust::make_zip_iterator(thrust::make_tuple(Mkeysv.begin(), Mvalsv.begin())), thrust::make_zip_iterator(thrust::make_tuple(Mkeysv.end()-1, Mvalsv.end()-1)), thrust::make_zip_iterator(thrust::make_tuple(Mkeysv.begin()+1, Mvalsv.begin()+1)), res2.begin(), mark_mpy_func());
  size_t rsize2 = thrust::remove_if(thrust::make_zip_iterator(thrust::make_tuple( Mkeysv.begin(), res2.begin())), thrust::make_zip_iterator(thrust::make_tuple(Mkeysv.end()-1, res2.end())), mtest_func()) - thrust::make_zip_iterator(thrust::make_tuple(Mkeysv.begin(), res2.begin()));
  std::cout << "Method 2 result:" << std::endl << "keys: ";
  thrust::copy_n(Mkeysv.begin(), rsize2, std::ostream_iterator(std::cout, ","));
  std::cout << std::endl << "vals: ";
  thrust::copy_n(res2.begin(), rsize2, std::ostream_iterator(std::cout, ","));
  std::cout << std::endl;


  return 0;
}

$ nvcc -o t1007 t1007.cu
$ ./t1007
Method 2 result:
keys: 1,4,5,6,
vals: 6,1,8,1,
$