int MPI_Alltoall(
  void *sendbuf,
  int sendcount,
  MPI_Datatype sendtype,
  void *recvbuf,
  int recvcount,
  MPI_Datatype recvtype,
  MPI_Comm comm
);

Parameters

sendbuf

[in] starting address of send buffer (choice)

sendcount

[in] number of elements to send to each process (integer)

sendtype

[in] data type of send buffer elements (handle)

recvbuf

[out] address of receive buffer (choice)

recvcount

[in] number of elements received from any process (integer)

recvtype

[in] data type of receive buffer elements (handle)

comm

[in] communicator (handle)

Remarks

MPI_ALLTOALL is an extension of MPI_ALLGATHER to the case where each process sends distinct data to each of the receivers. The jth block sent from process i is received by process j and is placed in the ith block of recvbuf.

The type signature associated with sendcount, sendtype, at a process must be equal to the type signature associated with recvcount, recvtype at any other process. This implies that the amount of data sent must be equal to the amount of data received, pairwise between every pair of processes. As usual, however, the type maps may be different.

The outcome is as if each process executed a send to each process (itself included) with a call to,

and a receive from every other process with a call to,

All arguments on all processes are significant. The argument comm must have identical values on all processes.

No "in place" option is supported.

If comm is an intercommunicator, then the outcome is as if each process in group A sends a message to each process in group B, and vice versa. The j-th send buffer of process i in group A should be consistent with the i-th receive buffer of process j in group B, and vice versa.

Advice to users.

When all-to-all is executed on an intercommunication domain, then the number of data items sent from processes in group A to processes in group B need not equal the number of items sent in the reverse direction. In particular, one can have unidirectional communication by specifying sendcount = 0 in the reverse direction.

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 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_ERR_COMM

Invalid communicator. A common error is to use a null communicator in a call (not even allowed in MPI_Comm_rank).

MPI_ERR_COUNT

Invalid count argument. Count arguments must be non-negative; a count of zero is often valid.

MPI_ERR_TYPE

Invalid datatype argument. May be an uncommitted MPI_Datatype (see MPI_Type_commit).

MPI_ERR_BUFFER

Invalid buffer pointer. Usually a null buffer where one is not valid.

Example Code

The following sample code illustrates MPI_Alltoall.

#include "mpi.h"
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <errno.h>

#ifndef EXIT_SUCCESS
#define EXIT_SUCCESS 0
#define EXIT_FAILURE 1
#endif

int main( int argc, char *argv[] )
{
    int rank, size;
    int chunk = 128;
    int i;
    int *sb;
    int *rb;
    int status, gstatus;

    MPI_Init(&argc,&argv);
    MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD,&rank);
    MPI_Comm_size(MPI_COMM_WORLD,&size);
    for ( i=1 ; i < argc ; ++i ) {
        if ( argv[i][0] != '-' )
            continue;
        switch(argv[i][1]) {
            case 'm':
                chunk = atoi(argv[++i]);
                break;
            default:
                fprintf(stderr, "Unrecognized argument %s\n", argv[i]);fflush(stderr);
                MPI_Abort(MPI_COMM_WORLD,EXIT_FAILURE);
        }
    }
    sb = (int *)malloc(size*chunk*sizeof(int));
    if ( !sb ) {
        perror( "can't allocate send buffer" );fflush(stderr);
        MPI_Abort(MPI_COMM_WORLD,EXIT_FAILURE);
    }
    rb = (int *)malloc(size*chunk*sizeof(int));
    if ( !rb ) {
        perror( "can't allocate recv buffer");fflush(stderr);
        free(sb);
        MPI_Abort(MPI_COMM_WORLD, EXIT_FAILURE);
    }
    for ( i=0 ; i < size*chunk ; ++i ) {
        sb[i] = rank + 1;
        rb[i] = 0;
    }
    status = MPI_Alltoall(sb, chunk, MPI_INT, rb, chunk, MPI_INT, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
    MPI_Allreduce( &status, &gstatus, 1, MPI_INT, MPI_SUM, MPI_COMM_WORLD );
    if (rank == 0) {
        if (gstatus != 0) {
            printf("all_to_all returned %d\n",gstatus);fflush(stdout);
        }
    }
    free(sb);
    free(rb);
    MPI_Finalize();
    return(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}