[Mpi3-rma] Target displacement sign issue

[Jim Dinan]

This would mean that the user can't use half of the address space for 
dynamic windows.  Not really ideal.

  ~Jim.

On 8/28/12 10:05 AM, Jeff Hammond wrote:
> Is it possible for implementations to prevent the user from attaching
> memory to a dynamic window that would cause this overflow?  For
> example, MPI_Win_attach could fail if the base+size indicated that
> addresses could be used that were greater than the capacity of
> MPI_Aint?  That seems like a way better option than breaking backwards
> compatibility or attaching all sorts of caveats to the use of MPI_Aint
> that a user is never going to remember.
>
> Jeff
>
> On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Jim Dinan <dinan at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
>> Sorry, this wasn't too clear.  A more detailed explanation of the problem
>> is:
>>
>> Passing a dynamic window displacement to an RMA operation currently requires
>> the user to put an address (which is an unsigned quantity) into an MPI_Aint
>> (which is signed).  With the current spec, passing a negative displacement
>> to an RMA operation is an error.  When interpreted as signed integers,
>> dynamic window displacements (i.e. addresses) can be negative because the
>> unsigned to signed conversion effectively overflows.
>>
>>   ~Jim.
>>
>>
>> On 8/28/12 9:49 AM, Jeff Hammond wrote:
>>>
>>> I do not understand this:
>>>
>>> "displacements associated with dynamic windows are addresses
>>> (unsigned) and can range into the space of negative integers"
>>>
>>> How can they "range into the space of negative integers" if they are
>>> unsigned?
>>>
>>> Jeff
>>>
>>> On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 9:46 AM, Jim Dinan <dinan at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> Currently, target displacements in put/get/acc/etc are defined to be
>>>> non-negative integers of type, MPI_Aint.  MPI_Aint is defined to be a
>>>> signed
>>>> integer.  However, displacements associated with dynamic windows are
>>>> addresses (unsigned) and can range into the space of negative integers.
>>>>
>>>> It seems like the least impact change would be to add a special case that
>>>> the displacement argument will be interpreted as unsigned for dynamic
>>>> windows.  Changing the interface to take an 'unsigned MPI_Aint' would be
>>>> the
>>>> most clear (and preserve the existing and intended new semantics), but
>>>> would
>>>> break backward compatibility.
>>>>
>>>> Interested to hear your thoughts.
>>>>
>>>>    ~Jim.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> mpi3-rma mailing list
>> mpi3-rma at lists.mpi-forum.org
>> http://lists.mpi-forum.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/mpi3-rma
>
>
>