## 5.1.1. Features Needed to Support Libraries

Up: Introduction Next: MPI's Support for Libraries Previous: Introduction

The key features needed to support the creation of robust parallel libraries are as follows:

- Safe communication space, that guarantees that libraries can communicate as they need to, without conflicting with communication extraneous to the library,
- Group scope for collective operations, that allow libraries to avoid unnecessarily synchronizing uninvolved processes (potentially running unrelated code),
- Abstract process naming to allow libraries to describe their communication in terms suitable to their own data structures and algorithms,
- The ability to ``adorn'' a set of communicating processes with additional user-defined attributes, such as extra collective operations. This mechanism should provide a means for the user or library writer effectively to extend a message-passing notation.

In addition, a unified mechanism or object is needed for conveniently denoting communication context, the group of communicating processes, to house abstract process naming, and to store adornments.

Up: Introduction Next: MPI's Support for Libraries Previous: Introduction

Return to MPI 1.1 Standard Index
Return to MPI-2 Standard Index
Return to MPI Forum Home Page

MPI-1.1 of June 12, 1995
HTML Generated on August 6, 1997