Swift Ordering of execution
Non-array variables are single-assignment, which means that they must be assigned to exactly one value during execution.A procedure or expression will be executed when all of its input parameters have been assigned values. As a result of such execution, more variables may become assigned, possibly allowing further parts of the script to execute.
In this way, scripts are implicitly parallel. Aside from serialisation implied by these dataflow dependencies, execution of component programs can proceed in parallel.
In this fragment, execution of procedures p and q can happen in parallel:
y=p(x);
z=q(x);while in this fragment, execution is serialised by the variable y, with procedure p executing before q.
y=p(x);
z=q(y);Arrays in Swift are more monotonic - a generalisation of being assignment. Knowledge about the content of an array increases during execution, but cannot otherwise change. Each element of the array is itself single assignment or monotonic (depending on its type). During a run all values for an array are eventually known, and that array is regarded as closed.
Statements which deal with the array as a whole will often wait for the array to be closed before executing (thus, a closed array is the equivalent of a non-array type being assigned). However, a foreach statement will apply its body to elements of an array as they become known. It will not wait until the array is closed.
Consider this script:
file a[];
file b[];
foreach v,i in a {
b[i] = p(v);
}
a[0] = r();
a[1] = s();Initially, the foreach statement will have nothing to execute, as the array a has not been assigned any values. The procedures r and s will execute. As soon as either of them is finished, the corresponding invocation of procedure p will occur. After both r and s have completed, the array a will be closed since no other statements in the script make an assignment to a.