Re: [mpi-21] F90 bindings

[Jeff Squyres <jsquyres@xxxxxxxxx>]

We actually did propose some F03 bindings (http://www.open-mpi.org/papers/euro-pvmmpi-2005-fortran/ 
) that addressed many of the issues with the F90 bindings, but we  
never got around to building them at least partly because at the time,  
the Fortran compilers did not support everything.

I never returned to the issue to see if the compilers caught up with  
our proposal / whether our proposal matched the Fortran 03 final  
spec / etc.  Perhaps for MPI-3...


On Dec 7, 2007, at 8:48 AM, Cownie, James H wrote:

> It may not help since there are few (no ?) compilers available for it,
> but a Fortran 2003 binding might make these issues easier. You really
> need a Fortran guru...
>
> -- Jim
>
> James Cownie <james.h.cownie@xxxxxxxxx>
> SSG/DPD/PAT
> Tel: +44 117 9071438
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-mpi-21@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-mpi-21@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On
> > Behalf Of Jeff Squyres
> > Sent: 07 December 2007 13:24
> > To: mpi-21@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: [mpi-21] F90 bindings
> >
> > The F90 bindings specified in MPI-2 currently require nearly 7  
> > million
> > interface functions in the Fortran 90 module (!).  This large number
> > of interfaces is required because F90 is a strongly-typed language  
> > and
> > has no analogue of (void*).  MPI_SEND, for example, has to be
> > overloaded with function signatures for every possible type of choice
> > buffer.  Worse, many collectives have *2* choice buffers... the end
> > result is that nearly 7M interfaces are needed.  As result, many MPI
> > implementations implement only a fraction of the MPI F90 module
> > interface functions.
> >
> > Additionally, user-defined F90 types cannot be supported.
> >
> > This is clearly a [big] bug in the F90 bindings.  What does the Forum
> > want to do about this for MPI-2.1?  Perhaps add some clarification
> > language?  Or ...?
> >
> > Can this issue be added to the discussion list for the bindings
> > subcommittee?
> >
> > --
> > Jeff Squyres
> > Cisco Systems
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--
Jeff Squyres
Cisco Systems