How to call a Thrust function in a stream from a kernel?

Question

I want to make thrust::scatter asynchronous by calling it in a device kernel(I could also do it by calling it in another host thread). thrust::cuda::par.on(stream) is host function that cannot be called from a device kernel. The following code was tried with CUDA 10.1 on Turing architecture.

__global__ void async_scatter_kernel(float* first,
    float* last,
    int* map,
    float* output)
{
    cudaStream_t stream;
    cudaStreamCreateWithFlags(&stream, cudaStreamNonBlocking);
    thrust::scatter(thrust::cuda::par.on(stream), first, last, map, output);
    cudaDeviceSynchronize();
    cudaStreamDestroy(stream);
}

I know thrust uses dynamic parallelism to launch its kernels when called from the device, however I couldn't find a way to specify the stream.

Answer 1

The following code compiles cleanly for me on CUDA 10.1.243:

$ cat t1518.cu
#include <thrust/scatter.h>
#include <thrust/execution_policy.h>

__global__ void async_scatter_kernel(float* first,
    float* last,
    int* map,
    float* output)
{
    cudaStream_t stream;
    cudaStreamCreateWithFlags(&stream, cudaStreamNonBlocking);
    thrust::scatter(thrust::cuda::par.on(stream), first, last, map, output);
    cudaDeviceSynchronize();
    cudaStreamDestroy(stream);
}

int main(){

  float *first = NULL;
  float *last = NULL;
  float *output = NULL;
  int *map = NULL;
  async_scatter_kernel<<<1,1>>>(first, last, map, output);
  cudaDeviceSynchronize();
}
$ nvcc -arch=sm_35 -rdc=true t1518.cu -o t1518
$ nvcc --version
nvcc: NVIDIA (R) Cuda compiler driver
Copyright (c) 2005-2019 NVIDIA Corporation
Built on Sun_Jul_28_19:07:16_PDT_2019
Cuda compilation tools, release 10.1, V10.1.243
$

The -arch=sm_35 (or similar) and -rdc=true are necessary (but not in all cases sufficient) compile switches for any code that uses CUDA Dynamic Parallelism. If you omit, for example, the -rdc=true switch, you get an error similar to what you describe:

$ nvcc -arch=sm_35 t1518.cu -o t1518
t1518.cu(11): error: calling a __host__ function("thrust::cuda_cub::par_t::on const") from a __global__ function("async_scatter_kernel") is not allowed

t1518.cu(11): error: identifier "thrust::cuda_cub::par_t::on const" is undefined in device code

2 errors detected in the compilation of "/tmp/tmpxft_00003a80_00000000-8_t1518.cpp1.ii".
$

So, for the example you have shown here, your compilation error can be eliminated either by updating to the latest CUDA version or by specifying the proper command line, or both.