std::execution:: seq, std::execution:: par, std::execution:: par_unseq, std::execution:: unseq

The execution policy types

• std::execution::sequenced_policy ,
• std::execution::parallel_policy ,
• std::execution::parallel_unsequenced_policy , and
• std::execution::unsequenced_policy

have the following respective instances:

• std::execution::seq ,
• std::execution::par ,
• std::execution::par_unseq , and
• std::execution::unseq .

These instances are used to specify the execution policy of parallel algorithms, i.e., the kinds of parallelism allowed.

Additional execution policies may be provided by a standard library implementation (possible future additions may include std::parallel::cuda and std::parallel::opencl ).

Example

#include <algorithm>
#include <chrono>
#include <cstdint>
#include <iostream>
#include <random>
#include <vector>
 
#ifdef PARALLEL
#include <execution>
    namespace execution = std::execution;
#else
    enum class execution { seq, unseq, par_unseq, par };
#endif
 
void measure([[maybe_unused]] auto policy, std::vector<std::uint64_t> v)
{
    const auto start = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
#ifdef PARALLEL
    std::sort(policy, v.begin(), v.end());
#else
    std::sort(v.begin(), v.end());
#endif
    const auto finish = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
    std::cout << std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::milliseconds>(finish - start)
              << '\n';
};
 
int main()
{
    std::vector<std::uint64_t> v(1'000'000);
    std::mt19937 gen {std::random_device{}()};
    std::ranges::generate(v, gen);
 
    measure(execution::seq, v);
    measure(execution::unseq, v);
    measure(execution::par_unseq, v);
    measure(execution::par, v);
}

// online GNU/gcc compiler (PARALLEL macro is not defined)
81ms
80ms
79ms
78ms
 
// with g++ -std=c++23 -O3 ./test.cpp -ltbb -DPARALLEL
165ms
163ms
30ms
27ms

See also