v.20.5Experimental Feature

Added OpenCL Support with Bitonic Sort Algorithm for Integer Data

Added OpenCL support and bitonic sort algorithm, which can be used for sorting integer types of data in single column. Needs to be build with flag -DENABLE_OPENCL=1. For using bitonic sort algorithm instead of others you need to set bitonic_sort for Setting's option special_sort and make sure that OpenCL is available. This feature does not improve performance or anything else, it is only provided as an example and for demonstration purposes. It is likely to be removed in near future if there will be no further development in this direction. #10232 (Ri).
Added OpenCL support and a bitonic sort algorithm for sorting single-column integer data using GPU acceleration.

Why it matters

This feature demonstrates the integration of OpenCL for performing bitonic sort on integer columns. It serves as an example and educational tool rather than a performance enhancement, allowing users to explore GPU-accelerated sorting within ClickHouse.

How to use it

Build ClickHouse with the -DENABLE_OPENCL=1 flag to enable OpenCL support. To use the bitonic sort algorithm, set the special_sort setting option to bitonic_sort and ensure OpenCL devices are available on your system.