What is the bug in this code that makes it not count right. (I want to print out 4 arrays un-merged. I'll do the merging later. This is intentional.) #!/usr/bin/env python3 import json import multiprocessing def count_words_in_chunk(start, end, queue): '''Count how often each word appears in the given chunk of the file.''' word_counts = {} with open('/tmp/file.txt', 'r') as f: f.seek(start) text = f.read(end - start) # Avoid cutting words in half at the beginning if start != 0: text = text.split(' ', 1)[-1] # Avoid cutting words in half at the end f.seek(end) remainder = f.readline() text += remainder # Tokenize and count words for word in text.split(): word = word.strip().lower() # Lowercasing for consistent counting if word: word_counts[word] = word_counts.get(word, 0) + 1 # Put result to the queue queue.put(word_counts) def main(): # Get the size of the file file_size = 0 with open('/tmp/file.txt', 'r') as f: f.seek(0, 2) file_size = f.tell() # Calculate chunk sizes for 4 cores chunk_size = file_size // 4 offsets = [(i * chunk_size, (i + 1) * chunk_size) for i in range(4)] # Last chunk should go until the end of the file offsets[-1] = (offsets[-1][0], file_size) # Queue for inter-process communication queue = multiprocessing.Queue() # Start 4 worker processes processes = [] for start, end in offsets: p = multiprocessing.Process(target=count_words_in_chunk, args=(start, end, queue)) processes.append(p) p.start() # Collect results for p in processes: p.join() # Print results as JSON objects one-per-process while not queue.empty(): word_count = queue.get() print(json.dumps(word_count)) if __name__ == "__main__": main() List exactly one reason.
What is the bug in this code that makes it not count right. (I want to print out 4 arrays un-merged. I'll do the merging later. This is intentional.) #!/usr/bin/env python3 import json import multiprocessing def count_words_in_chunk(start, end, queue): '''Count how often each word appears in the given chunk of the file.''' word_counts = {} with open('/tmp/file.txt', 'r') as f: f.seek(start) text = f.read(end - start) # Avoid cutting words in half at the beginning if start != 0: text = text.split(' ', 1)[-1] # Avoid cutting words in half at the end f.seek(end) remainder = f.readline() text += remainder # Tokenize and count words for word in text.split(): word = word.strip().lower() # Lowercasing for consistent counting if word: word_counts[word] = word_counts.get(word, 0) + 1 # Put result to the queue queue.put(word_counts) def main(): # Get the size of the file file_size = 0 with open('/tmp/file.txt', 'r') as f: f.seek(0, 2) file_size = f.tell() # Calculate chunk sizes for 4 cores chunk_size = file_size // 4 offsets = [(i * chunk_size, (i + 1) * chunk_size) for i in range(4)] # Last chunk should go until the end of the file offsets[-1] = (offsets[-1][0], file_size) # Queue for inter-process communication queue = multiprocessing.Queue() # Start 4 worker processes processes = [] for start, end in offsets: p = multiprocessing.Process(target=count_words_in_chunk, args=(start, end, queue)) processes.append(p) p.start() # Collect results for p in processes: p.join() # Print results as JSON objects one-per-process while not queue.empty(): word_count = queue.get() print(json.dumps(word_count)) if __name__ == "__main__": main() List exactly one reason.
The bug is that each process reads beyond its chunk's end by using `readline()` to capture split words, causing overlapping regions between chunks. This leads to words near chunk boundaries being counted multiple times across different processes. For example, if a chunk ends mid-line, the remainder read includes the entire rest of the line, which is then also processed by the next chunk.
Below is a student's explanation for why some parallel wordcounting code is not working correctly. You don't need to see the full code, just tell me whether or not the student says that the main reason the code is broken is because 'the chunks could contain the same data or be overlapping' or something like this. Saying 'a word might be split in half' is wrong. Saying 'you might miss a word' is also wrong. Here is their answer: The bug is that each process reads beyond its chunk's end by using `readline()` to capture split words, causing overlapping regions between chunks. This leads to words near chunk boundaries being counted multiple times across different processes. For example, if a chunk ends mid-line, the remainder read includes the entire rest of the line, which is then also processed by the next chunk. Tell me either 'The student passes' or 'The student fails'.
The student passes.
Testing if the previous output contains the string student passes: True