matlab fix slicing to execute parfor

Question

Just beginning with parallel stuff...

I have a code that boils down to filling the columns of a matrix A (which is preallocated with NaNs) with an array of variable length:

A = nan(100);
for ii=1:100
    hmy = randi([1,100]); %lenght of the array 
    A(1:hmy,ii) = rand(hmy,1); %array
end

Simply transforming the for in a parfor does not even run

parfor ii=1:100
    hmy = randi([1,100]); %how many not NaN values to put in 
    A(1:hmy,ii) = rand(hmy,1);
end

because the parfor does not like the indexing:

MATLAB runs loops in parfor functions by dividing the loop iterations into groups, and then sending them to MATLAB workers where they run in parallel. For MATLAB to do this in a repeatable, reliable manner, it must be able to classify all the variables used in the loop. The code uses the indicated variable in a way that is incompatible with classification.

I thought that this was due to the indexing on the first dimension and tried a workaround that did not work (same error message as before):

parfor ii=1:100
    hmy = randi([1,100]);
    tmp = [rand(hmy,1); NaN(size(A,1)-hmy,1)];
    A(:,ii) = tmp;
end

How can I index A in order to store the array?

Rijul Sudhir Rijul Sudhir · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-12T08:07:49

You cant partially change the row or column data in A. You have to do either a full row or full column inside parfor. Here is the updated code.

A = nan(100);
parfor ii=1:100
    hmy = randi([1,100]); %lenght of the array 
    temp = nan(1,100);
    temp(1:hmy) = rand(hmy,1); %array
    A(:,ii) = temp; %updating full row of iith column
end

matlab fix slicing to execute parfor

2 Answers