batched-fn provides a macro that can be used to easily a wrap a function that runs on batches of inputs in such a way that it can be called with a single input, yet where that single input is run as part of a batch of other inputs behind the scenes.

This is useful when you have a high throughput application where processing inputs in a batch is more efficient that processing inputs one-by-one. The trade-off is a small delay that is incurred while waiting for a batch to be filled, though this can be tuned with the delay and max_batch_size parameters.

A typical use-case is when you have a GPU-backed deep learning model deployed on a webserver that provides a prediction for each input that comes in through an HTTP request.

Even though inputs come individually - and outputs need to be served back individually - it is usually more efficient to process a group of inputs together in order to fully utilize the GPU.

In this case the model API might look like this:

``rust //Batchcould be anything that implements thebatched_fn::Batch` trait. type Batch = Vec;

[derive(Debug)]

struct Input { // ... }

[derive(Debug)]

struct Output { // ... }

struct Model { // ... }

impl Model { fn predict(&self, batch: Batch) -> Batch

{ // ... }

fn load() -> Self {
    // ...
}

} ```

Without batched-fn, the webserver route would need to call Model::predict on each individual input which would result in a bottleneck from under-utilizing the GPU:

```rust use once_cell::sync::Lazy;

static MODEL: Lazy = Lazy::new(Model::load);

fn predictforhttprequest(input: Input) -> Output { let mut batchedinput = Batch::withcapacity(1); batchedinput.push(input); MODEL.predict(batched_input).pop().unwrap() } ```

But by dropping the batched_fn macro into this function, you automatically get batched inference behind the scenes without changing the one-to-one relationship between inputs and outputs:

rust async fn predict_for_http_request(input: Input) -> Output { let batch_predict = batched_fn! { handler = |batch: Batch<Input>, model: &Model| -> Batch<Output> { ctx.model.predict(batch) }; config = { max_batch_size: 16, delay: 50, }; context = { model: Model::load(), }; }; batch_predict(input).await }

❗️ Note that the predict_for_http_request function now has to be async.

Here we set the max_batch_size to 16 and delay to 50 milliseconds. This means the batched function will wait at most 50 milliseconds after receiving a single input to fill a batch of 16. If 15 more inputs are not received within 50 milliseconds then the partial batch will be ran as-is.

Tuning max batch size and delay

The optimal batch size and delay will depend on the specifics of your use case, such as how big of a batch you can fit in memory (typically on the order of 8, 16, 32, or 64 for a deep learning model) and how long of a delay you can afford. In general you want to set both of these as high as you can.

It's worth noting that the response time of your application might actually go down under high load. This is because the batch handler will be called as soon as either a batch of max_batch_size is filled or delay milliseconds has passed, whichever happens first. So under high load batches will be filled quickly, but under low load the response time will be at least delay milliseconds (adding the time it takes to actually process a batch and respond).