MPI: A Message-Passing Interface Standard

Version 1.1: June, 1995. Beginning in March, 1995, the Message Passing Interface Forum reconvened to correct errors and make clarifications in the MPI document of May 5, 1994, referred to below as Version 1.0. These discussions resulted in Version 1.1, which is this document. The changes from Version 1.0 are minor. A version of this document with all changes marked is available. This paragraph is an example of a change.

Version 1.0: June, 1994. The Message Passing Interface Forum (MPIF), with participation from over 40 organizations, has been meeting since January 1993 to discuss and define a set of library interface standards for message passing. MPIF is not sanctioned or supported by any official standards organization.

The goal of the Message Passing Interface, simply stated, is to develop a widely used standard for writing message-passing programs. As such the interface should establish a practical, portable, efficient, and flexible standard for message passing.

This is the final report, Version 1.0, of the Message Passing Interface Forum. This document contains all the technical features proposed for the interface. This copy of the draft was processed by LaTeX on June 12, 1995.

Please send comments on MPI to mpi-comments@cs.utk.edu. Your comment will be forwarded to MPIF committee members who will attempt to respond.

(c) 1993, 1994, 1995 University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted, provided the University of Tennessee copyright notice and the title of this document appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the University of Tennessee.

Acknowledgments

The technical development was carried out by subgroups, whose work was reviewed by the full committee. During the period of development of the Message Passing Interface ( MPI), many people served in positions of responsibility and are listed below.

• Jack Dongarra, David Walker, Conveners and Meeting Chairs
• Ewing Lusk, Bob Knighten, Minutes
• Marc Snir, William Gropp, Ewing Lusk, Point-to-Point Communications
• Al Geist, Marc Snir, Steve Otto, Collective Communications
• Steve Otto, Editor
• Rolf Hempel, Process Topologies
• Ewing Lusk, Language Binding
• William Gropp, Environmental Management
• James Cownie, Profiling
• Tony Skjellum, Lyndon Clarke, Marc Snir, Richard Littlefield, Mark Sears, Groups, Contexts, and Communicators
• Steven Huss-Lederman, Initial Implementation Subset

The University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory made the draft available by anonymous FTP mail servers and were instrumental in distributing the document.

MPI operated on a very tight budget (in reality, it had no budget when the first meeting was announced). ARPA and NSF have supported research at various institutions that have made a contribution towards travel for the U.S. academics. Support for several European participants was provided by ESPRIT.

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