Question regarding calling the destructor of a broadcast variable in parfor.

When I run PARfor script, with parfor having final loop index a number higher or equal than six times (nEnemies>=6), the destructor of Mage is called exactly 6 times while parfor executes. I do not understand why the destructor is even called, and much less why exactly 6 times.

If the parfor has the final loop index less or equal than six times (nEnemies<=6), the number of calls to Mage's destructor is equal to the value of the final loop index. I do not understand why the destructor is called.

As a side note, I know that doDamage method of Mage is not robust and can led to bugs related to Enemy's health, but it is not the point of this question.

Answer 1

[Matt J]

It is because you have 6 workers in your parpool. Therefore, a copy of Mage is sent to each worker, for a total of 6, during parfor, and those 6 are destroyed when parfor terminates.

When your loop has fewer N<6 iterations, only N of the workers have any work to do, and so only N object copies are broadcasted.