[MPI3 Fortran] MPI Data types

[N.M. Maclaren]

On May 7 2009, Jeff Squyres wrote:
>On May 7, 2009, at 9:29 AM, Bill Long wrote:
>
>> So, inside a wrapper C wrapper routine,  could the information  
>> available
>> in our Cdesc structure be used create the corresponding MPI datatype,
>> and then use that in the internal MPI Call?   This avoids the need  
>> for a
>> copy at all, does not require any modifications to the Request data
>> structure, and also relieves the Fortran user from creating his own  
>> MPI
>> datatype.  This sounds like the best solution yet.  (Or , maybe that's
>> been the plan all along, and I've just figured it out :) ).

That is what I was attempting to suggest yesterday, but clearly didn't
succeed.  Either technique would work. 

>That would be suitable for a Fortran value-add/add-on library.  It is  
>not suitable for the Fortran MPI bindings, unfortunately -- we need to  
>preserve pretty much a 1:1 mapping of Fortran functions to C functions  
>for the official bindings.

That means you have to stick to non-standard Fortran 77.  Sorry, but the
memory models of C and Fortran just don't overlap on any superset.

>Craig has talked about making a value-add Fortran library that would  
>do stuff like this (similar to how the Boost.MPI library did this for C 
>++).

I thought that we were discussing features to enable MPI-3 to support things
like Fortran array arguments that have no equivalent in C (principally
assumed shape).


Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
Email:  nmm1 at cam.ac.uk
Tel.:  +44 1223 334761    Fax:  +44 1223 334679