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Programming in Parallel


How to do it

The programs in the pips/filters directory are intended to be used as templates to write new application.

Assuming the new application will be called fourier, the following steps will yield an executable fourier:

  1. cd pips/filters
  2. Selection of a program whose number of variables and parameters is similar to the requirements of fourier and/or whose function is similar to fourier - say stddev.c. Running stddev without parameters will displays information about it.
  3. cp stddev.c fourier.c
  4. Editing and customizing fourier.c.
  5. Editing pips/Makefile: Every paragraph and line that contains stddev has to be duplicated, replacing stddev with fourier.
  6. Invoking make in the pips directory will create an executable fourier in the pvm executable directory.
The main difficulty in programming parallel in this way is still to arrange the data segmentation properly. This task is so application dependent that it can't be hidden from the user of this package.

The user should therefore consider implementing and debugging his algorithm sequential first and then transforming it to a parallel application.


Frank Heimes (Dr-Frank.Heimes@epost.de), 31 Jan 1995
Phone: +49 (721) 6091 - 424, FAX: +49 (721) 6091 - 233
http://members.tripod.de/DrFrankHeimes/pips/parHowTo.html