Unbounded Golang Channels

unbounded is a Go package that provides an implementation of an unbounded/unlimited/unsized channel with chunked buffers and a wait list. This implementation allows for efficient inter-goroutine communication with unbounded capacity, ensuring smooth performance even under high concurrency without blocking on send for a receiver.

Features

• Unbounded capacity: The channel grows dynamically as needed.
• Efficient memory usage: Uses chunked buffers to manage items.
• Wait list: Handles blocking receives without busy-waiting.
• No blocking send: Send will not block sender for a receiver.

Installation

To install the package, run:

go get github.com/fereidani/unbounded

Usage

Creating an Unbounded Channel

To create a new unbounded channel, use the New function:

import "github.com/fereidani/unbounded"

ch := unbounded.New[int]()

Sending Items

To send an item to the unbounded channel, use the Send method:

ch.Send(777)

Receiving Items

To receive an item from the unbounded channel, use the Receive method:

value, ok := ch.Receive()
if ok {
    fmt.Println("Received:", value)
} else {
    fmt.Println("Channel closed")
}

Closing the Channel

To close the unbounded channel, use the Close method:

ch.Close()

Example

Here is a complete example demonstrating how to use the unbounded package:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "github.com/fereidani/unbounded"
)

func main() {
    ch := unbounded.New[int]()

    go func() {
        for i := 0; i < 10; i++ {
            ch.Send(i)
        }
        ch.Close()
    }()

    for {
        value, ok := ch.Receive()
        if !ok {
            break
        }
        fmt.Println("Received:", value)
    }
}

Benchmarks

Benchmarks have been conducted to compare the performance of the unbounded channel implementation with Go's built-in channels. For some reason this library is outperforming Golang channels in SPSC.

BenchmarkUnboundedChannelMPMC-8   	7940866	       166.4 ns/op
BenchmarkGoChannelMPMC-8         	10961176	       105.3 ns/op
BenchmarkUnboundedChannelSPSC-8  	21728120	        56.32 ns/op
BenchmarkGoChannelSPSC-8         	15320703	        66.16 ns/op

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.