DeinoMPI

The Great and Terrible implementation of MPI-2

MPI_Alloc_mem

Allocate memory for message passing and RMA (Remote Memory Access)

int MPI_Alloc_mem(
  MPI_Aint size,
  MPI_Info info,
  void *baseptr
);

Parameters

size: [in] size of memory segment in bytes (nonnegative integer)
info: [in] info argument (handle)
baseptr: [out] pointer to a pointer to the beginning of the memory segment allocated

Remarks

Using this routine from Fortran requires that the Fortran compiler accept a common pointer extension. See Section 4.11 (Memory Allocation) in the MPI-2 standard for more information and examples.

Also note that while baseptr is a void * type, this is simply to allow easy use of any pointer object for this parameter. In fact, this argument is really a void ** type, that is, a pointer to a pointer.

In some systems, message-passing and remote-memory-access ( RMA) operations run faster when accessing specially allocated memory (e.g., memory that is shared by the other processes in the communicating group on an SMP). MPI provides a mechanism for allocating and freeing such special memory. The use of such memory for message passing or RMA is not mandatory, and this memory can be used without restrictions as any other dynamically allocated memory. However, implementations may restrict the use of the MPI_WIN_LOCK and MPI_WIN_UNLOCK functions to windows allocated in such memory

The info argument can be used to provide directives that control the desired location of the allocated memory. Such a directive does not affect the semantics of the call. Valid info values are implementation-dependent; a null directive value of info = MPI_INFO_NULL is always valid.

The function MPI_ALLOC_MEM may return an error code of class MPI_ERR_NO_MEM to indicate it failed because memory is exhausted.

Thread and Interrupt Safety

This routine is thread-safe. This means that this routine may be safely used by multiple threads without the need for any user-provided thread locks. However, the routine is not interrupt safe. Typically, this is due to the use of memory allocation routines such as mallocor other non-MPICH runtime routines that are themselves not interrupt-safe.

Notes for Fortran

All MPI routines in Fortran (except for MPI_WTIME and MPI_WTICK) have an additional argument ierr at the end of the argument list. ierris an integer and has the same meaning as the return value of the routine in C. In Fortran, MPI routines are subroutines, and are invoked with the call statement.

All MPI objects (e.g., MPI_Datatype, MPI_Comm) are of type INTEGERin Fortran.

Errors

All MPI routines (except MPI_Wtime and MPI_Wtick) return an error value; C routines as the value of the function and Fortran routines in the last argument. Before the value is returned, the current MPI error handler is called. By default, this error handler aborts the MPI job. The error handler may be changed with MPI_Comm_set_errhandler (for communicators), MPI_File_set_errhandler (for files), and MPI_Win_set_errhandler (for RMA windows). The MPI-1 routine MPI_Errhandler_set may be used but its use is deprecated. The predefined error handler MPI_ERRORS_RETURN may be used to cause error values to be returned. Note that MPI does not guarentee that an MPI program can continue past an error; however, MPI implementations will attempt to continue whenever possible.

MPI_SUCCESS: No error; MPI routine completed successfully.

MPI_ERR_INFO: Invalid Info

MPI_ERR_ARG: Invalid argument. Some argument is invalid and is not identified by a specific error class (e.g., MPI_ERR_RANK).

MPI_ERR_NO_MEM: Insufficient memory available for allocation by MPI_Alloc_mem

Example Code

The following sample code illustrates MPI_Alloc_mem.

#include "mpi.h"
#include <stdio.h>

int main( int argc, char *argv[] )
{
    int errs = 0, err;
    int j, count;
    char *ap;

    MPI_Init( &argc, &argv );
    MPI_Errhandler_set( MPI_COMM_WORLD, MPI_ERRORS_RETURN );
    for (count=1; count < 128000; count *= 2)
    {
        err = MPI_Alloc_mem( count, MPI_INFO_NULL, &ap );
        if (err) {
            int errclass;
            /* An error of MPI_ERR_NO_MEM is allowed */
            MPI_Error_class( err, &errclass );
            if (errclass != MPI_ERR_NO_MEM) {
                errs++;
                printf("MPI_Alloc_mem failed.\n");
            }
        }
        else {
            /* Access all of this memory */
            for (j=0; j<count; j++) {
                ap[j] = (char)(j & 0x7f);
            }
            MPI_Free_mem( ap );
        }
    }
    MPI_Finalize();
    return 0;
}

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