Document @threadcall

base/docs/helpdb/Base.jl

@@ -4839,7 +4839,7 @@ IntSet
 """
     Task(func)
 
-Create a `Task` (i.e. thread, or coroutine) to execute the given function (which must be
+Create a `Task` (i.e. coroutine) to execute the given function (which must be
 callable with no arguments). The task exits when this function returns.
 """
 Task

doc/manual/parallel-computing.rst

@@ -1076,6 +1076,31 @@ The iteration space is split amongst the threads, after which each thread writes
 
 Note that :obj:`Threads.@threads` does not have an optional reduction parameter like :obj:`@parallel`.
 
+@threadcall (Experimental)
+--------------------------
+All I/O tasks, timers, REPL commands, etc are multiplexed onto a single OS thread via an event loop.
+A patched version of libuv (http://docs.libuv.org/en/v1.x/) provides this functionality. Yield points provide
+for co-operatively scheduling multiple tasks onto the same OS thread. I/O tasks and timers yield implicitly while
+waiting for the event to occur. Calling `yield()` explicitly allows for other tasks to be scheduled.
+
+Thus, a task executing a ``ccall`` effectively prevents the Julia scheduler from executing any other
+tasks till the call returns. This is true for all calls into external libraries. Exceptions are calls into
+custom C code that call back into Julia (which may then yield) or C code that calls ``jl_yield()``(C equivalent of ``yield()``).
+
+Note that while Julia code runs on a single thread (by default), libraries used by Julia may launch their own internal
+threads. For example, the BLAS library may start as many threads as there are cores on a machine.
+
+The ``@threadcall`` macro addresses scenarios where we do not want a ``ccall`` to block the main Julia event loop.
+It schedules a C function for execution in a separate thread. A threadpool with a default size of 4 is used for this.
+The size of the threadpool is controlled via environment variable UV_THREADPOOL_SIZE. While waiting for a free thread,
+and during function execution once a thread is available, the requesting task (on the main Julia event loop)
+yields to other tasks. Note that ``@threadcall`` does not return till the execution is complete. From a user point of
+view, it is therefore a blocking call like other Julia API.
+
+It is very important that the called function does not call back into Julia.
+
+``@threadcall`` may be removed/changed in future versions of Julia.
+
 .. rubric:: Footnotes
 
 .. [#mpi2rma] In this context, MPI refers to the MPI-1 standard. Beginning with MPI-2, the MPI standards committee introduced a new set of communication mechanisms, collectively referred to as Remote Memory Access (RMA). The motivation for adding RMA to the MPI standard was to facilitate one-sided communication patterns. For additional information on the latest MPI standard, see http://www.mpi-forum.org/docs.

doc/stdlib/parallel.rst

@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ Tasks
 
    .. Docstring generated from Julia source
 
-   Create a ``Task`` (i.e. thread, or coroutine) to execute the given function (which must be callable with no arguments). The task exits when this function returns.
+   Create a ``Task`` (i.e. coroutine) to execute the given function (which must be callable with no arguments). The task exits when this function returns.
 
 .. function:: yieldto(task, arg = nothing)
 
@@ -814,6 +814,17 @@ will) change in the future.
 
    For further details, see LLVM's ``fence`` instruction.
 
+ccall using a threadpool (Experimental)
+---------------------------------------
+
+.. function:: @threadcall((cfunc, clib), rettype, (argtypes...), argvals...)
+
+   .. Docstring generated from Julia source
+
+   The ``@threadcall`` macro is called in the same way as ``ccall`` but does the work in a different thread. This is useful when you want to call a blocking C function without causing the main ``julia`` thread to become blocked. Concurrency is limited by size of the libuv thread pool, which defaults to 4 threads but can be increased by setting the ``UV_THREADPOOL_SIZE`` environment variable and restarting the ``julia`` process.
+
+   Note that the called function should never call back into Julia.
+
 Synchronization Primitives
 --------------------------