threading in node js code example

Example 1: how many threads does node js use

Node.js runs JavaScript code in the Event Loop (initialization and callbacks), and offers a Worker Pool to handle expensive tasks like file I/O. Node.js scales well, sometimes better than more heavyweight approaches like Apache. The secret to the scalability of Node.js is that it uses a small number of threads to handle many clients. If Node.js can make do with fewer threads, then it can spend more of your system's time and memory working on clients rather than on paying space and time overheads for threads (memory, context-switching). But because Node.js has only a few threads, you must structure your application to use them wisely.

Here's a good rule of thumb for keeping your Node.js server speedy: Node.js is fast when the work associated with each client at any given time is "small".

This applies to callbacks on the Event Loop and tasks on the Worker Pool.

Example 2: how many threads does node js use

Example 2: Partitioned average, each of the n asynchronous steps costs O(1).

function asyncAvg(n, avgCB) {
  // Save ongoing sum in JS closure.
  var sum = 0;
  function help(i, cb) {
    sum += i;
    if (i == n) {
      cb(sum);
      return;
    }

    // "Asynchronous recursion".
    // Schedule next operation asynchronously.
    setImmediate(help.bind(null, i+1, cb));
  }

  // Start the helper, with CB to call avgCB.
  help(1, function(sum){
      var avg = sum/n;
      avgCB(avg);
  });
}

asyncAvg(n, function(avg){
  console.log('avg of 1-n: ' + avg);
});
You can apply this principle to array iterations and so forth.