DeinoMPI

The Great and Terrible implementation of MPI-2

function index

MPI_Waitall

Waits for all given MPI Requests to complete
int MPI_Waitall(
  int count,
  MPI_Request array_of_requests[],
  MPI_Status array_of_statuses[]
);

Parameters

count
[in] list length (integer)
array_of_requests
[in] array of request handles (array of handles)
array_of_statuses
[out] array of status objects (array of Statuses). May be MPI_STATUSES_IGNORE.

Remarks

Blocks until all communication operations associated with active handles in the list complete, and return the status of all these operations (this includes the case where no handle in the list is active). Both arrays have the same number of valid entries. The i-th entry in array_of_statuses is set to the return status of the i-th operation. Requests that were created by nonblocking communication operations are deallocated and the corresponding handles in the array are set to MPI_REQUEST_NULL. The list may contain null or inactive handles. The call sets to empty the status of each such entry.

The error-free execution of MPI_WAITALL(count, array_of_requests, array_of_statuses) has the same effect as the execution of
MPI_WAIT(&array_of_request[i], &array_of_statuses[i]), for i=0 ,..., count-1, in some arbitrary order. MPI_WAITALL with an array of length one is equivalent to MPI_WAIT.

When one or more of the communications completed by a call to MPI_WAITALL fail, it is desireable to return specific information on each communication. The function MPI_WAITALL will return in such case the error code MPI_ERR_IN_STATUS and will set the error field of each status to a specific error code. This code will be MPI_SUCCESS, if the specific communication completed; it will be another specific error code, if it failed; or it can be MPI_ERR_PENDING if it has neither failed nor completed. The function MPI_WAITALL will return MPI_SUCCESS if no request had an error, or will return another error code if it failed for other reasons (such as invalid arguments). In such cases, it will not update the error fields of the statuses.


Rationale.

This design streamlines error handling in the application. The application code need only test the (single) function result to determine if an error has occurred. It needs to check each individual status only when an error occurred. (End Rationale)

If one or more of the requests completes with an error, MPI_ERR_IN_STATUS is returned. An error value will be present is elements of array_of_status associated with the requests. Likewise, the MPI_ERROR field in the status elements associated with requests that have successfully completed will be MPI_SUCCESS. Finally, those requests that have not completed will have a value of MPI_ERR_PENDING.

While it is possible to list a request handle more than once in the array_of_requests, such an action is considered erroneous and may cause the program to unexecpectedly terminate or produce incorrect results.

Note on status for send operations

For send operations, the only use of status is for MPI_Test_cancelled or in the case that there is an error, in which case the MPI_ERROR field of status will be set.

Thread and Interrupt Safety

This routine is thread-safe. This means that this routine may be safely used by multiple threads without the need for any user-provided thread locks. However, the routine is not interrupt safe. Typically, this is due to the use of memory allocation routines such as malloc or other non-MPICH runtime routines that are themselves not interrupt-safe.

Notes for Fortran

All MPI routines in Fortran (except for MPI_WTIME and MPI_WTICK) have an additional argument ierr at the end of the argument list. ierr is an integer and has the same meaning as the return value of the routine in C. In Fortran, MPI routines are subroutines, and are invoked with the call statement.

All MPI objects (e.g., MPI_Datatype, MPI_Comm) are of type INTEGER in Fortran.

Errors

All MPI routines (except MPI_Wtime and MPI_Wtick) return an error value; C routines as the value of the function and Fortran routines in the last argument. Before the value is returned, the current MPI error handler is called. By default, this error handler aborts the MPI job. The error handler may be changed with MPI_Comm_set_errhandler (for communicators), MPI_File_set_errhandler (for files), and MPI_Win_set_errhandler (for RMA windows). The MPI-1 routine MPI_Errhandler_set may be used but its use is deprecated. The predefined error handler MPI_ERRORS_RETURN may be used to cause error values to be returned. Note that MPI does not guarentee that an MPI program can continue past an error; however, MPI implementations will attempt to continue whenever possible.

MPI_SUCCESS
No error; MPI routine completed successfully.
MPI_ERR_REQUEST
Invalid MPI_Request. Either null or, in the case of a MPI_Start or MPI_Startall, not a persistent request.
MPI_ERR_ARG
Invalid argument. Some argument is invalid and is not identified by a specific error class (e.g., MPI_ERR_RANK).
MPI_ERR_IN_STATUS
The actual error value is in the MPI_Status argument. This error class is returned only from the multiple-completion routines (MPI_Testall, MPI_Testany, MPI_Testsome, MPI_Waitall, MPI_Waitany, and MPI_Waitsome). The field MPI_ERROR in the status argument contains the error value or MPI_SUCCESS (no error and complete) or MPI_ERR_PENDING to indicate that the request has not completed.
The MPI Standard does not specify what the result of the multiple completion routines is when an error occurs. For example, in an MPI_WAITALL, does the routine wait for all requests to either fail or complete, or does it return immediately (with the MPI definition of immediately, which means independent of actions of other MPI processes)? MPICH has chosen to make the return immediate (alternately, local in MPI terms), and to use the error class MPI_ERR_PENDING (introduced in MPI 1.1) to indicate which requests have not completed. In most cases, only one request with an error will be detected in each call to an MPI routine that tests multiple requests. The requests that have not been processed (because an error occured in one of the requests) will have their MPI_ERROR field marked with MPI_ERR_PENDING.

Example Code

The following sample code illustrates MPI_Waitall.

#include "mpi.h"
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    int rank, size;
    int i;
    int buffer[400];
    MPI_Request request[4];
    MPI_Status status[4];

    MPI_Init(&argc, &argv);
    MPI_Comm_size(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &size);
    if (size != 4)
    {
        printf("Please run with 4 processes.\n");fflush(stdout);
        MPI_Finalize();
        return 1;
    }
    MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &rank);

    if (rank == 0)
    {
        for (i=0; i<size * 100; i++)
            buffer[i] = i/100;
        for (i=0; i<size-1; i++)
        {
            MPI_Isend(&buffer[i*100], 100, MPI_INT, i+1, 123, MPI_COMM_WORLD, &request[i]);
        }
        MPI_Waitall(size-1, request, status);
    }
    else
    {
        MPI_Recv(buffer, 100, MPI_INT, 0, 123, MPI_COMM_WORLD, &status[0]);
        printf("%d: buffer[0] = %d\n", rank, buffer[0]);fflush(stdout);
    }

    MPI_Finalize();
    return 0;
}