What is a coroutine?

What is a coroutine? How are they related to concurrency?

Coroutines and concurrency are largely orthogonal. Coroutines are a general control structure whereby flow control is cooperatively passed between two different routines without returning.

The 'yield' statement in Python is a good example. It creates a coroutine. When the 'yield ' is encountered the current state of the function is saved and control is returned to the calling function. The calling function can then transfer execution back to the yielding function and its state will be restored to the point where the 'yield' was encountered and execution will continue.

From Programming in Lua, "Coroutines" section:

> A coroutine is similar to a thread (in the sense of multithreading): it is a line of execution, with its own stack, its own local variables, and its own instruction pointer; but it shares global variables and mostly anything else with other coroutines. The main difference between threads and coroutines is that, conceptually (or literally, in a multiprocessor machine), a program with threads runs several threads in parallel. Coroutines, on the other hand, are collaborative: at any given time, a program with coroutines is running only one of its coroutines, and this running coroutine suspends its execution only when it explicitly requests to be suspended.

So the point is: Coroutines are "collaborative". Even in multi-core system, there is only one coroutine running at any given time (but multiple threads can run in parallel). There is non-preemptive between coroutines, the running coroutine must relinquish the execution explicitly.

For "concurrency", you can refer Rob Pike's slide:

> Concurrency is the composition of independently executing computations.

So during coroutine A's execution, it passes control to coroutine B. Then after some time, the coroutine B passes control back to coroutine A. Since there is dependency between coroutines, and they must run in tandem, so the two coroutines are not concurrency.

I find most of the answers too technical even though it is a technical question. I had a hard time trying to understand the coroutine process. I kind of get it but then I don't get it at the same time.

I found this answer here very helpful:

https://dev.to/thibmaek/explain-coroutines-like-im-five-2d9

To quote from Idan Arye:

> To build on your story, I'd put it something like this: > > You start watching the cartoon, but it's the intro. Instead of > watching the intro you switch to the game and enter the online lobby - > but it needs 3 players and only you and your sister are in it. Instead > of waiting for another player to join you switch to your homework, and > answer the first question. The second question has a link to a YouTube > video you need to watch. You open it - and it starts loading. Instead > of waiting for it to load, you switch back to the cartoon. The intro > is over, so you can watch. Now there are commercials - but meanwhile a > third player has joined so you switch to the game And so on... > > The idea is that you don't just switch the tasks really fast to make > it look like you are doing everything at once. You utilize the time > you are waiting for something to happen(IO) to do other things that do > require your direct attention.

Definitely check the link, there are much more that I cannot quote everything.

Coroutine is similar to subroutine/threads. The difference is once a caller invoked a subroutine/threads, it will never return back to the caller function. But a coroutine can return back to the caller after executing a few piece of code allowing the caller to execute some of its own code and get back to the coroutine point where it stopped execution and continue from there. ie. A coroutine has more than one entry and exit points

• Coroutines are great features available in Kotlin Language
• Coroutines are a new way of writing asynchronous, non-blocking code (and much more)
• Coroutine are light-weight threads. A light weight thread means it doesn’t map on native thread, so it doesn’t require context switching on processor, so they are faster.
• it doesn’t map on native thread
• Coroutines and the threads both are multitasking. But the difference is that threads are managed by the OS and coroutines by the users.

Basically, there are two types of Coroutines:

1. Stackless
2. Stackful

Kotlin implements stackless coroutines — it’s mean that the coroutines don’t have own stack, so they don’t map on native thread.

These are the functions to start the coroutine:

launch{}

async{}

You can learn more from here :

https://www.kotlindevelopment.com/deep-dive-coroutines/

https://blog.mindorks.com/what-are-coroutines-in-kotlin-bf4fecd476e9

I find an explanation from this link is pretty straight forward. None of those answers try to explain concurrency vs parallelism except the last bullet point in this answer.

1. what is concurrent (program)?

cited from "programming Erlang", by Joe Armstrong, the legendary:

> a concurrent program can run potentially faster on a parallel computer.

• a concurrent program is a program written in a concurrent programming language. We write concurrent programs for reasons of performance, scalability, or fault tolerance.

• a concurrent programming language is a language that has explicit language constructs for writing concurrent programs. These constructs are an integral part of programming language and behave the same way on all operating systems.

• a parallel computer is a computer that has several processing units (CPUs or cores) that can run at the same time.

So concurrency is not the same as parallelism. You can still write concurrent programs on a single-core computer. The time-sharing scheduler will make you feel your program is running concurrently.

The concurrent program has the potential to run in parallel in a parallel computer but not guaranteed. OS may only give you one core to run your program.

Therefore, concurrency is a software model from a concurrent program that doesn't mean your program can run in parallel physically.

2. coroutine and concurrency

> The word “coroutine” is composed of two words: “co” (cooperative) and “routines” (functions).

a. does it achieve concurrency or parallelism?

To be simple, let's discuss it on a single-core computer.

Concurrency is achieved by time-shares from OS. A thread executes its code in its assigned time frames on the CPU core. It can be preempted by OS. It may also yield control to OS.

A coroutine, on the other hand, yields control to another coroutine within the thread, not to OS. So all coroutines within a thread still exploit the time frame for that thread without yielding the CPU core to other threads managed by OS.

Therefore, you can think of coroutine achieves time-shares by the user not by OS (or quasi-parallelism). Coroutines run on the same core assigned to the thread that runs those coroutines.

Does Coroutine achieve parallelism? If it's CPU-bound code, no. Like time-shares, it makes you feel they run in parallel but their executions are interleaved not overlapped. If it's IO-bound, yes, it achieves parallel by hardware (IO devices) not by your code.

b. the difference with function call?

As the pic shows, it doesn't need to call return to switch control. It can yield without return. A coroutine saves and shares state on the current function frame (stack). So it's much more lightweight than function since you don't have to save registers and local variables to stack and rewind call stack when call ret.

A coroutine is a special kind of subprogram. Rather than the master- slave relationship between a caller and a called subprogram that exists with conventional subprograms, caller and called coroutines are more equitable.

• A coroutine is a subprogram that has multiple entries and controls them itself – supported directly in Lua

• Also called symmetric control: caller and called coroutines are on a more equal basis

• A coroutine call is named a resume

• The first resume of a coroutine is to its beginning, but subsequent calls enter at the point just after the last executed statement in the coroutine

• Coroutines repeatedly resume each other, possibly forever

• Coroutines provide quasi-concurrent execution of program units (the coroutines); their execution is interleaved, but not overlapped

Coroutine as an implementation of concurrency and alternative to multithreading.

A coroutine is a single-threaded solution to achieve concurrency.

         A-Start ------------------------------------------ A-End   
           | B-Start -----------------------------------------|--- B-End   
           |    |      C-Start ------------------- C-End      |      |   
           |    |       |                           |         |      |
           V    V       V                           V         V      V      
1 thread->|<-A-|<--B---|<-C-|-A-|-C-|--A--|-B-|--C-->|---A---->|--B-->| 

In comparison to a multithreading solution:

thread A->|<--A|          |--A-->|
thread B------>|<--B|            |--B-->|
thread C ---------->|<---C|             |C--->|

---

• Coroutine is an implementation of asynchronous programming, and asynchronous programming is used to implement concurrency.
• Many languages implemented asynchronous programming with coroutine. The other answers suggest Python, Kotlin, Lua, C++ have done so.
• Most useful/typically used in scenarios involving I/O bound problems, like rendering UI while fetching data, or downloading from several data sources.

On a different note, in python gevent library is a coroutine based networking library which gives you threadlike features like async network requests, without the overhead of creating and destroying threads. The coroutine library used is greenlet.

If you are still confused, here is a very simple way of understanding a co-routine. First off, what is a routine? In a lay man's term, a routine is something that we do again and again (for example, your morning routine). Similarly. in programming languages, a routine is a piece of code that we use again and again, e.g., a function. Now, if you look at the general characteristic of a function or routine (note: I am cautiously using these two terms interchangeably), it takes some inputs and hogs the CPU threads for as long as the function needs to output the result. Meaning, functions or routines are blocking calls in you code. However, a co-routine is a special kind of routine that can co-exist (the "co" part of the word co-routine comes from this) with other routines at the same time and we can make this happen in programming languages with the help of asynchronous programming. In Asynchronous programming, when one co-routine is waiting for something to happen (e.g., disk io), the other co-routine will start working and when this co-routine is in a waiting state the other co-routine will be active ultimately reducing the waiting time of our code.

If you understand the above, let's see how you can create a co-routine function in Python. You can define a co-routine function as following -

async def my_coroutine_function():
    return 123

And you can the call the above co-routine by adding await in front of the co-routine-

my_result = await my_coroutine_function()

To conclude,

When you're watching a TV show and as soon as the Ad comes, you take your phone and text a friend - what you have just done is Asynchronous Programming. While your TV show (a co-routine) was on a waiting state, you went ahead and made your other co-routine (texting your friend) active.

From Python Coroutine:

> Execution of Python coroutines can be suspended and resumed at many > points (see coroutine). Inside the body of a coroutine function, await > and async identifiers become reserved keywords; await expressions, > async for and async with can only be used in coroutine function > bodies.

From Coroutines (C++20)

> A coroutine is a function that can suspend execution to be resumed > later. Coroutines are stackless: they suspend execution by returning > to the caller. This allows for sequential code that executes > asynchronously (e.g. to handle non-blocking I/O without explicit > callbacks), and also supports algorithms on lazy-computed infinite > sequences and other uses.

Compare with other's answer:

In my opinion, the resumed later part is a core difference, just like @Twinkle's.
Although many fields of the document are still work in progress, however, this part is similar to most answer, except @Nan Xiao 's

> Coroutines, on the other hand, are collaborative: at any given time, a > program with coroutines is running only one of its coroutines, and > this running coroutine suspends its execution only when it explicitly > requests to be suspended.

Since it's quoted from Program in Lua, maybe it's language related(not familiar with Lua currently), not all document mentioned the only one part.

The relation with concurrent:
There is an "Execution" part of the Coroutines (C++20).Too long to quote here.
Besides the detail, there are several states.

When a coroutine begins execution  
When a coroutine reaches a suspension point  
When a coroutine reaches the co_return statement  
If the coroutine ends with an uncaught exception  
When the coroutine state is destroyed either because it terminated via co_return or uncaught exception, or because it was destroyed via its handle 

as the comment from @Adam Arold under @user217714's answer. It's concurrency.
But it's different from multithreading. from std::thread
> Threads allow multiple functions to execute concurrently. > Threads begin execution immediately upon construction of the > associated thread object (pending any OS scheduling delays), starting > at the top-level function provided as a constructor argument. The > return value of the top-level function is ignored and if it terminates > by throwing an exception, std::terminate is called. The top-level > function may communicate its return value or an exception to the > caller via std::promise or by modifying shared variables (which may > require synchronization, see std::mutex and std::atomic)

Since it's concurrency, it works like multithreading especially when waiting is unavoidable(from the OS perspective), that's also why it's confusing.

I will expand on @user21714 's answer. Coroutines are independent paths of execution that can not run simultaneously. They depend upon a controller - for example a python controller library - to handle switching between these paths. But for this to work the coroutines themselves need to invoke yield or similar structures that allow their execution to be paused.

Threads instead are running on independent compute resources and in parallel with each other. Since they are on different resources there is no need for invoking yield to allow the other paths of execution to proceed.

You can see this effect by starting a multihreaded program - e.g. a jvm application - in which all eight of your core i7 hyperthread cores are utilized: you might see 797% utilization in Activity Monitor or Top. Instead when running a typical python program - even one with coroutines or python threading - the utilization will max out at 100%. I.e. one machine hyperthread.

[Synchronous vs Asynchronous]

[Concurrency vs Parallelism]

Usually we heart something like - coroutines are light weight threads, they allow us to write asynchronous, non-blocking code in a synchronous manner

As for Kotlin Coroutines:

Coroutine is a synthetic sugar/additional layer which allows you to run a big task in a non-blocking way and without callbacks. Coroutine consists of some classes(Job, Dispatcher, Scope, Builder) and body

Lets review some example

suspend fun downloadFile(): File {
    //logic
}

suspend fun saveFile(file: File) {
    //logic
}

GlobalScope.launch {
    val downloadResult = downloadFile() //suspend function
    show(downloadResult) //UI 
    saveFile(downloadResult) //suspend function
}

It creates Continuation class which is state machine with invokeSuspend() function

class Continuation {
    File file;
 
    void invokeSuspend(Object result) {
        switch (label) {
            case 0: {
                label = 1;
                downloadFile(this); //suspend function
                return;
            }
            case 1: {
                file = (File) result;
                show(file); //UI
                saveFile(file, this); //suspend function
                return;
            }
        }
    }
}

suspended

• is just a marker for working with Continuation - passes continuation into the function
• divides state machine which means that it can pause the machine
• should use callback inside which calls Continuation.resume() -> Continuation.invokeSuspend()

The main point that behavior of coroutine completely depends on library realisation