docs/source/custom-collections.rst
For many problems, the built-in Dask collections (dask.array,
dask.dataframe, dask.bag, and dask.delayed) are sufficient. For
cases where they aren't, it's possible to create your own Dask collections. Here
we describe the required methods to fulfill the Dask collection interface.
.. note:: This is considered an advanced feature. For most cases the built-in collections are probably sufficient.
Before reading this you should read and understand:
overview <graphs>graph specification <spec>custom graphs <custom-graphs>Contents
Description of the Dask collection interface <collection-interface>How this interface is used to implement the core Dask methods <core-method-internals>How to add the core methods to your class <adding-methods-to-class>example-dask-collectionHow to check if something is a Dask collection <is-dask-collection>How to make tokenize work with your collection <deterministic-hashing>.. _collection-interface:
To create your own Dask collection, you need to fulfill the interface
defined by the :py:class:dask.typing.DaskCollection protocol. Note
that there is no required base class.
It is recommended to also read :ref:core-method-internals to see how this
interface is used inside Dask.
Collection Protocol
.. autoclass:: dask.typing.DaskCollection
:members: __dask_graph__, __dask_keys__, __dask_postcompute__,
__dask_postpersist__, __dask_tokenize__,
__dask_optimize__, __dask_scheduler__, compute, persist,
visualize
HLG Collection Protocol
.. note:: HighLevelGraphs are being deprecated in favor of expressions. New projects are encouraged to not implement their own HLG Layers.
Collections backed by Dask's :ref:high-level-graphs must implement
an additional method, defined by this protocol:
.. autoclass:: dask.typing.HLGDaskCollection :members: dask_layers
Scheduler get Protocol
The ``SchedulerGetProtocol`` defines the signature that a Dask
collection's ``__dask_scheduler__`` definition must adhere to.
.. autoclass:: dask.typing.SchedulerGetCallable
:members: __call__
Post-persist Callable Protocol
Collections must define a __dask_postpersist__ method which
returns a callable that adheres to the PostPersistCallable
interface.
.. autoclass:: dask.typing.PostPersistCallable :members: call
.. _core-method-internals:
Dask has a few core functions (and corresponding methods) that implement common operations:
compute: Convert one or more Dask collections into their in-memory
counterpartspersist: Convert one or more Dask collections into equivalent Dask
collections with their results already computed and cached in memoryoptimize: Convert one or more Dask collections into equivalent Dask
collections sharing one large optimized graphvisualize: Given one or more Dask collections, draw out the graph that
would be passed to the scheduler during a call to compute or persistHere we briefly describe the internals of these functions to illustrate how they relate to the above interface.
Compute
The operation of ``compute`` can be broken into three stages:
1. **Graph Merging, finalization**
First, the individual collections are converted to a single large expression
and nested list of keys. This is done by
:func:`~dask.base.collections_to_expr` and ensures that all collections are
optimized together to eliminate common sub-expressions.
.. note::
At this stage, legacy HLG graphs are wrapped into a ``HLGExpr`` that
encodes __dask_postcompute__ and the low level optimizer as determined by `__dask_optimize__` into the expression.
The ``optimize_graph`` argument is only relevant for HLG graphs and
controls whether low level optimizations are considered.
- If ``optimize_graph`` is ``True`` (default), then the collections are
first grouped by their ``__dask_optimize__`` methods. All collections with the same ``__dask_optimize__`` method have their graphs merged and keys concatenated, and then a single call to each respective ``__dask_optimize__`` is made with the merged graphs and keys. The resulting graphs are then merged.
- If ``optimize_graph`` is ``False``, then all the graphs are merged and
all the keys concatenated.
The combined graph is _finalized_ with a ``FinalizeCompute`` expression
which instructs the expression / graph to reduce to a single partition,
suitable to be returned to the user after compute. This is either done by
implemengint the ``__dask_postcompute__`` method of the collection or by
implementing an optimization path of the expression.
For the example of a DataFrame, the ``FinalizeCompute`` simplifies to a ``RepartitionToFewer(..., npartition=1)`` which simply concatenates all results to one ordinary DataFrame.
2. **(Expression) Optimization**
The merged expression is optimized. This step should not be confused with
the low level optimization that is defined by `__dask_optimize__` for legacy
graphs. This is a step that is always performed and is a required step to
simplify and lower expressions to their final form that can be used to
actually generate the executable task graph. See also, :doc:`/dataframe-optimizer`.
For legacy HLG graphs, the low level optimization step is embedded in the
graph materialization which typically only happens after the graph has been
passed to the scheduler (see below).
3. **Computation**
After the graphs are merged and any optimizations performed, the resulting
large graph and nested list of keys are passed on to the scheduler. The
scheduler to use is chosen as follows:
- If a ``get`` function is specified directly as a keyword, use that
- Otherwise, if a global scheduler is set, use that
- Otherwise fall back to the default scheduler for the given collections.
Note that if all collections don't share the same ``__dask_scheduler__``
then an error will be raised.
Once the appropriate scheduler ``get`` function is determined, it is called
with the merged graph, keys, and extra keyword arguments. After this stage,
``results`` is a nested list of values. The structure of this list mirrors
that of ``keys``, with each key substituted with its corresponding result.
Persist
Persist is very similar to compute, except for how the return values are
created. It too has three stages:
Graph Merging, no finalization
Same as in compute but without a finalization. In the case of persist we
do not want to concatenate all output partitions but instead want to return a
future for every partition.
(Expression) Optimization
Same as in compute.
Computation
Same as in compute with the difference that the returned results are a list of Futures.
Postpersist
The futures returned by the scheduler are used with __dask_postpersist__ to rebuild a collection that is pointing to the remote data.
__dask_postpersist__ returns two things:
rebuild function, which takes in a persisted graph. The keys of
this graph are the same as __dask_keys__ for the corresponding
collection, and the values are computed results (for the single-machine
scheduler) or futures (for the distributed scheduler).rebuild after the graphTo build the outputs of persist, the list of collections and results is
iterated over, and the rebuilder for each collection is called on the graph
for its respective results.
Optimize
The operation of ``optimize`` can be broken into two stages:
1. **Graph Merging, *no* finalization**
Same as in ``persist``.
2. **(Expression) Optimization**
Same as in ``compute`` and ``persist``.
3. **Materialization and Rebuilding**
The entire graph is materialized (which also performs low level optimization).
Similar to ``persist``, the ``rebuild`` function and arguments from
``__dask_postpersist__`` are used to reconstruct equivalent collections from
the optimized graph.
Visualize
Visualize is the simplest of the 4 core functions. It only has two stages:
Graph Merging & Optimization
Same as in compute.
Graph Drawing
The resulting merged graph is drawn using graphviz and outputs to the
specified file.
.. _adding-methods-to-class:
Defining the above interface will allow your object to used by the core Dask
functions (dask.compute, dask.persist, dask.visualize, etc.). To
add corresponding method versions of these, you can subclass from
dask.base.DaskMethodsMixin which adds implementations of compute,
persist, and visualize based on the interface above.
It is recommended to define dask graphs using the :class:dask.expr.Expr class.
To get started, a minimal set of methods have to be implemented.
.. autoclass:: dask.Expr :members: _task, _layer, dask_keys, dask_graph
.. _example-dask-collection:
Here we create a Dask collection representing a tuple. Every element in the
tuple is represented as a task in the graph. Note that this is for illustration
purposes only - the same user experience could be done using normal tuples with
elements of dask.delayed:
.. code:: python
import dask
from dask.base import DaskMethodsMixin, replace_name_in_key
from dask.expr import Expr, LLGExpr
from dask.typing import Key
from dask.task_spec import Task, DataNode, Alias
# We subclass from DaskMethodsMixin to add common dask methods to
# our class (compute, persist, and visualize). This is nice but not
# necessary for creating a Dask collection (you can define them
# yourself).
class Tuple(DaskMethodsMixin):
def __init__(self, expr):
self._expr = expr
def __dask_graph__(self):
return self._expr.__dask_graph__()
def __dask_keys__(self):
return self._expr.__dask_keys__()
# Use the threaded scheduler by default.
__dask_scheduler__ = staticmethod(dask.threaded.get)
def __dask_postcompute__(self):
# We want to return the results as a tuple, so our finalize
# function is `tuple`. There are no extra arguments, so we also
# return an empty tuple.
return tuple, ()
def __dask_postpersist__(self):
return Tuple._rebuild, ("mysuffix",)
@staticmethod
def _rebuild(futures: dict, name: str):
expr = LLGExpr({
(name, i): DataNode((name, i), val)
for i, val in enumerate(futures.values())
})
return Tuple(expr)
def __dask_tokenize__(self):
# For tokenize to work we want to return a value that fully
# represents this object. In this case this is done by a type
identifier plus the (also tokenized) name of the expression
return (type(self), self._expr._name)
class RemoteTuple(Expr):
@property
def npartitions(self):
return len(self.operands)
def __dask_keys__(self):
return [(self._name, i) for i in range(self.npartitions)]
def _task(self, name: Key, index: int) -> Task:
return DataNode(name, self.operands[index])
Demonstrating this class:
.. code:: python
>>> from dask_tuple import Tuple
def from_pytuple(pytup: tuple) -> Tuple:
return Tuple(RemoteTuple(*pytup))
>>> dask_tup = from_pytuple(tuple(range(5)))
>>> dask_tup.__dask_keys__()
[('remotetuple-b7ea9a26c3ab8287c78d11fd45f26793', 0),
('remotetuple-b7ea9a26c3ab8287c78d11fd45f26793', 1),
('remotetuple-b7ea9a26c3ab8287c78d11fd45f26793', 2)]
# Compute turns Tuple into a tuple
>>> dask_tup.compute()
(0, 1, 2)
# Persist turns Tuple into a Tuple, with each task already computed
>>> dask_tup2 = dask_tup.persist()
>>> isinstance(dask_tup2, Tuple)
True
>>> dask_tup2.__dask_graph__()
{('newname', 0): DataNode(0),
('newname', 1): DataNode(1),
('newname', 2): DataNode(2)}
>>> x2.compute()
(0, 1, 2)
# Run-time typechecking
>>> from dask.typing import DaskCollection
>>> isinstance(x, DaskCollection)
True
.. _is-dask-collection:
To check if an object is a Dask collection, use
dask.base.is_dask_collection:
.. code:: python
>>> from dask.base import is_dask_collection
>>> from dask import delayed
>>> x = delayed(sum)([1, 2, 3])
>>> is_dask_collection(x)
True
>>> is_dask_collection(1)
False
.. _deterministic-hashing:
Dask implements its own deterministic hash function to generate keys based on
the value of arguments. This function is available as dask.base.tokenize.
Many common types already have implementations of tokenize, which can be
found in dask/base.py.
When creating your own custom classes, you may need to register a tokenize
implementation. There are two ways to do this:
The __dask_tokenize__ method
Where possible, it is recommended to define the __dask_tokenize__ method.
This method takes no arguments and should return a value fully
representative of the object. It is a good idea to call dask.base.normalize_token
from it before returning any non-trivial objects.
Register a function with dask.base.normalize_token
If defining a method on the class isn't possible or you need to
customize the tokenize function for a class whose super-class is
already registered (for example if you need to sub-class built-ins),
you can register a tokenize function with the normalize_token
dispatch. The function should have the same signature as described
above.
In both cases the implementation should be the same, where only the location of the definition is different.
.. note:: Both Dask collections and normal Python objects can have
implementations of tokenize using either of the methods
described above.
Example
.. code:: python
>>> from dask.base import tokenize, normalize_token
# Define a tokenize implementation using a method.
>>> class Point:
... def __init__(self, x, y):
... self.x = x
... self.y = y
...
... def __dask_tokenize__(self):
... # This tuple fully represents self
... # Wrap non-trivial objects with normalize_token before returning them
... return normalize_token(Point), self.x, self.y
>>> x = Point(1, 2)
>>> tokenize(x)
'5988362b6e07087db2bc8e7c1c8cc560'
>>> tokenize(x) == tokenize(x) # token is idempotent
True
>>> tokenize(Point(1, 2)) == tokenize(Point(1, 2)) # token is deterministic
True
>>> tokenize(Point(1, 2)) == tokenize(Point(2, 1)) # tokens are unique
False
# Register an implementation with normalize_token
>>> class Point3D:
... def __init__(self, x, y, z):
... self.x = x
... self.y = y
... self.z = z
>>> @normalize_token.register(Point3D)
... def normalize_point3d(x):
... return normalize_token(Point3D), x.x, x.y, x.z
>>> y = Point3D(1, 2, 3)
>>> tokenize(y)
'5a7e9c3645aa44cf13d021c14452152e'
For more examples, see ``dask/base.py`` or any of the built-in Dask collections.