Rust has an f16 and bf16 type

[MarkReedZ]

Rust has a crate half that has an f16 and bf16 we could be using. Users would probably be using this?

• https://docs.rs/half/latest/half/index.html

Rust will be adding f16 into the core language.

• Tracking Issue for f16 and f128 float types rust-lang/rust#116909

The addition of bf16 into the core is tracked here

• Additional float types rust-lang/rfcs#3451

[ashvardanian]

Once they add, we can integrate the native type. Until then, I'd avoid dependencies.

[MarkReedZ]

Great. I added a link for bf16 above and will add these when available.

[Wyctus]

But f16 is already supported, there is even an example!

And this implementation also does not rely on the half crate. Doesn't this mean that it is also possible to introduce bf16 without a new dependency?

Or is this also blocked by the C implementation of bf16 not being ready yet?

[ashvardanian]

We don't need a C-level or Rust-level support for f16 and bf16 to implement those. Just cast an arbitrary 16-bit scalar to a similarly named type defined in SimSIMD and you ready to go 🤗

[Wyctus]

Thank you for the quick answer, but I'm a little bit lost. 🙃

So I looked into the Rust code and for example in the case of cos and f16, the simsimd_cos_f16 C function is called. But this function based on the platform uses f16 specific intrinsics (e.g. svmla_f16_x).

So I would expect that the bf16-based metrics also have some corresponding C-functions (e.g. simsimd_cos_bf16), which would rely on bf16 specific intrinsics. But I haven't found anything specific.

Do such bf16 intrinsics actually exist? I saw some bf16 related stuff for ARM NEON, and some for AVX512 but, I'm not sure what to do.

[ashvardanian]

bf16 isn't implemented yet, you can track the progress here: #80

[ashvardanian]

Hey @Wyctus! As you may have seen, the bf16 is now implemented. Have you tried using it? Do you still have any questions?

[Wyctus]

Hey @Wyctus! As you may have seen, the bf16 is now implemented. Have you tried using it? Do you still have any questions?

Awesome! I haven't seen it yet, but I'm gonna try it tomorrow! 🚀 Thanks!

[Wyctus]

I tried to test bf16 in Rust, but I couldn't find a struct bf16(u16) new type and the traits SpatialSimilarity, ProbabilitySimilarity and ComplexProducts implemented for it.

Am I missing something?

[ashvardanian]

Oh, wow, we forgot to expose it to Rust 🙈 Any chance you could contribute, @Wyctus? Should be identical to f16.

[Wyctus]

Sure, I'll send a PR, hopefully I'll have time today!

[ashvardanian]

Hey, @Wyctus! How is it going? Would be great to merge those extensions into #154 - gonna be an epic release, and even better with your contributions 🤗

[Wyctus]

Hey, I'm going to send the PR later today! 🙂