int MPI_Comm_split(
  MPI_Comm comm,
  int color,
  int key,
  MPI_Comm *newcomm
);

Parameters

comm

[in] communicator (handle)

color

[in] control of subset assignment (nonnegative integer). Processes with the same color are in the same new communicator

key

[in] control of rank assigment (integer)

newcomm

[out] new communicator (handle)

Remarks

This function partitions the group associated with comm into disjoint subgroups, one for each value of color. Each subgroup contains all processes of the same color. Within each subgroup, the processes are ranked in the order defined by the value of the argument key, with ties broken according to their rank in the old group. A new communicator is created for each subgroup and returned in newcomm. A process may supply the color value MPI_UNDEFINED, in which case newcomm returns MPI_COMM_NULL. This is a collective call, but each process is permitted to provide different values for color and key.

A call to MPI_COMM_CREATE(comm, group, newcomm) is equivalent to
a call to MPI_COMM_SPLIT(comm, color, key, newcomm), where all members of group provide color~ =~0 and key~=~ rank in group, and all processes that are not members of group provide color~ =~ MPI_UNDEFINED. The function MPI_COMM_SPLIT allows more general partitioning of a group into one or more subgroups with optional reordering. This call applies only intra-communicators.

The value of color must be nonnegative or MPI_UNDEFINED.

Advice to users.

This is an extremely powerful mechanism for dividing a single communicating group of processes into k subgroups, with k chosen implicitly by the user (by the number of colors asserted over all the processes). Each resulting communicator will be non-overlapping. Such a division could be useful for defining a hierarchy of computations, such as for multigrid, or linear algebra.

Multiple calls to MPI_COMM_SPLIT can be used to overcome the requirement that any call have no overlap of the resulting communicators (each process is of only one color per call). In this way, multiple overlapping communication structures can be created. Creative use of the color and key in such splitting operations is encouraged.

Note that, for a fixed color, the keys need not be unique. It is MPI_COMM_SPLIT's responsibility to sort processes in ascending order according to this key, and to break ties in a consistent way. If all the keys are specified in the same way, then all the processes in a given color will have the relative rank order as they did in their parent group. (In general, they will have different ranks.)

Essentially, making the key value zero for all processes of a given color means that one doesn't really care about the rank-order of the processes in the new communicator.

Rationale.

color is restricted to be nonnegative, so as not to confict with the value assigned to MPI_UNDEFINED.

The result of MPI_COMM_SPLIT on an intercommunicator is that those processes on the left with the same color as those processes on the right combine to create a new intercommunicator. The key argument describes the relative rank of processes on each side of the intercommunicator (see Figure 10). For those colors that are specified only on one side of the intercommunicator, MPI_COMM_NULL is returned. MPI_COMM_NULL is also returned to those processes that specify MPI_UNDEFINED as the color.

 

[ ]Intercommunicator construction achieved by splitting an existing intercommunicator with MPI_COMM_SPLIT extended to intercommunicators.
Example(Parallel client-server model). The following client code illustrates how clients on the left side of an intercommunicator could be assigned to a single server from a pool of servers on the right side of an intercommunicator.
 

        /* Client code */ 
        MPI_Comm  multiple_server_comm; 
        MPI_Comm  single_server_comm; 
        int       color, rank, num_servers; 
         
        /* Create intercommunicator with clients and servers:  
           multiple_server_comm */ 
        ... 
         
        /* Find out the number of servers available */ 
        MPI_Comm_remote_size ( multiple_server_comm, &num_servers ); 
         
        /* Determine my color */ 
        MPI_Comm_rank ( multiple_server_comm, &rank ); 
        color = rank % num_servers; 
         
        /* Split the intercommunicator */ 
        MPI_Comm_split ( multiple_server_comm, color, rank,  
                         &single_server_comm ); 

        /* Server code */ 
        MPI_Comm  multiple_client_comm; 
        MPI_Comm  single_server_comm; 
        int       rank; 
 
        /* Create intercommunicator with clients and servers:  
           multiple_client_comm */ 
        ... 
         
        /* Split the intercommunicator for a single server per group 
           of clients */ 
        MPI_Comm_rank ( multiple_client_comm, &rank ); 
        MPI_Comm_split ( multiple_client_comm, rank, 0,  
                         &single_server_comm );   

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.

Algorithm

  1. Use MPI_Allgather to get the color and key from each process
  2. Count the number of processes with the same color; create a 
     communicator with that many processes.  If this process has
     MPI_UNDEFINED as the color, create a process with a single member.
  3. Use key to order the ranks
  4. Set the VCRs using the ordered key values

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_COMM

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

MPI_ERR_INTERN

This error is returned when some part of the MPICH implementation is unable to acquire memory.

See Also

Example Code

The following sample code illustrates MPI_Comm_split.

#include <stdio.h>
#include "mpi.h"

#define BUFSIZE 2000

int main( int argc, char *argv[] )
{
    MPI_Status status;
    MPI_Comm comm,scomm;
    int a[10], b[10];
    int buf[BUFSIZE], *bptr, bl, i, j, rank, size, color, errs=0;

    MPI_Init( 0, 0 );
    MPI_Comm_rank( MPI_COMM_WORLD, &rank );
    color = rank % 2;
    MPI_Comm_split( MPI_COMM_WORLD, color, rank, &scomm );
    MPI_Intercomm_create( scomm, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD, 1-color, 52, &comm);
    MPI_Comm_rank( comm, &rank );
    MPI_Comm_remote_size( comm, &size );
    MPI_Buffer_attach( buf, BUFSIZE );

    for (j=0; j<10; j++) {
        for (i=0; i<10; i++) {
            a[i] = (rank + 10 * j) * size + i;
        }
        MPI_Bsend( a, 10, MPI_INT, 0, 27+j, comm );
    }
    if (rank == 0) {
        for (i=0; i<size; i++) {
            for (j=0; j<10; j++) {
                int k;
                status.MPI_TAG = -10;
                status.MPI_SOURCE = -20;
                MPI_Recv( b, 10, MPI_INT, i, 27+j, comm, &status );

                if (status.MPI_TAG != 27+j) {
                    errs++;
                    printf( "Wrong tag = %d\n", status.MPI_TAG );fflush(stdout);
                }
                if (status.MPI_SOURCE != i) {
                    errs++;
                    printf( "Wrong source = %d\n", status.MPI_SOURCE );fflush(stdout);
                }
                for (k=0; k<10; k++) {
                    if (b[k] != (i + 10 * j) * size + k) {
                        errs++;
                        printf( "received b[%d] = %d from %d tag %d\n", k, b[k], i, 27+j );fflush(stdout);
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
    MPI_Buffer_detach( &bptr, &bl );
    MPI_Comm_free(&scomm);
    MPI_Comm_free(&comm);
    MPI_Finalize();
    return errs;
}