Hello,
I am trying to figure out the most appropriate MPI calls for a certain
portion of my code. I will describe the situation here:
Each cell (i,j) of my array A is being updated by a calculation that
depends on the values of 1 or 2 of the 4 possible neighbors A(i+1,j),
A(i-1,j), A(i,j+1), and A(i,j-1). Say, for example,
A(i,j)=A(i-1,j)*A(i,j-1). The thing is, the values of the neighbors
A(i-1,j) and A(i,j-1) cannot be used until an auxiliary array B has been
updated from 0 to 1. The values B(i-1,j) and B(i,j-1) are changed from 0
-> 1 after the values A(i-1,j) and A(i,j-1) have been communicated to the
proc that contains cell (i,j), as cells (i-1,j) and (i,j-1) belong to
different procs. Here is pseudocode for how I have the algorithm
implemented (in fortran):
do while (B(ii,jj,kk).eq.0)
if (probe_for_message(i0,j0,k0,this_sc)) then
my_ibuf(1)=my_ibuf(1)+1
A(i0,j0,k0)=this_sc
B(i0,j0,k0)=1
end if
end do
The function 'probe_for_message' uses an 'MPI_IPROBE' to see if
'MPI_ANY_SOURCE' has a message for my current proc. If there is a message,
the function returns a true logical and calls 'MPI_RECV', receiving
(i0,j0,k0,this_sc) from the proc that has the message. This works! My
concern is that I am probing repeatedly inside the while loop until I
receive a message from a proc such that ii=i0, jj=j0, kk=k0. I could
potentially call MPI_IPROBE many many times before this happens... and I'm
worried that this is a messy way of doing this. Could I "break" the mpi
probe call? Are there MPI routines that would allow me to accomplish the
same thing in a more formal or safer way? Maybe a persistent communication
or something? For very large computations with many procs, I am observing
a hanging situation which I suspect may be due to this. I observe it when
using openmpi-1.4.4, and the hanging seems to disappear if I use mvapich.
Any suggestions/comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!
--
JM
