MPI: what to do if the number of expected MPI_Recvs is not specified
I have many slave nodes that may or may not send messages to the master node. So there is currently no way the node master knows how much MPI_Recv to expect. The slaves had to send the minimum number of messages to the master node for efficiency reasons.
I managed to find a cool trick that sends an additional "done" message when it no longer expects any messages. Unfortunately this does not work in my case where there is a variable number of senders. Any idea on how to do this? Thank!
if(rank == 0){ //MASTER NODE
while (1) {
MPI_Recv(&buffer, 10, MPI_INT, MPI_ANY_SOURCE, MPI_ANY_TAG, MPI_COMM_WORLD, &status);
if (status.MPI_TAG == DONE) break;
/* Do stuff */
}
}else{ //MANY SLAVE NODES
if(some conditions){
MPI_Send(&buffer, 64, MPI_INT, root, 1, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
}
}
MPI_Barrier(MPI_COMM_WORLD);
MPI_Send(NULL, 1, MPI_INT, root, DONE, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
Doesn't work, the program seems to still be waiting for MPI_Recv
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A simpler and more elegant option is to use MPI_IBARRIER
. Ask each worker to call all messages they sent, and then call MPI_IBARRIER
when done. In the main, you can execute the cycle both MPI_IRECV
on MPI_ANY_SOURCE
and on MPI_IBARRIER
. When executed MPI_IBARRIER
, you know that everything is finished and you can undo MPI_IRECV
and move on. The pseudocode will look something like this:
if (master) {
/* Start the barrier. Each process will join when it done. */
MPI_Ibarrier(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &requests[0]);
do {
/* Do the work */
MPI_Irecv(..., MPI_ANY_SOURCE, &requests[1]);
/* If the index that finished is 1, we received a message.
* Otherwise, we finished the barrier and we're done. */
MPI_Waitany(2, requests, &index, MPI_STATUSES_IGNORE);
} while (index == 1);
/* If we're done, we should cancel the receive request and move on. */
MPI_Cancel(&requests[1]);
} else {
/* Keep sending work back to the master until we're done. */
while( ...work is to be done... ) {
MPI_Send(...);
}
/* When we finish, join the Ibarrier. Note that
* you can't use an MPI_Barrier here because it
* has to match with the MPI_Ibarrier above. */
MPI_Ibarrier(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &request);
MPI_Wait(&request, MPI_STATUS_IGNORE);
}
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1- you called MPI_Barrier
in the wrong place, it should be called after MPI_Send
.
2- root will exit the loop when it gets DONE
from all other ranks (size -1).
code after some changes:
#include <mpi.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
MPI_Init(NULL, NULL);
int size;
MPI_Comm_size(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &size);
int rank;
MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &rank);
MPI_Status status;
int DONE = 888;
int buffer = 77;
int root = 0 ;
printf("here is rank %d with size=%d\n" , rank , size);fflush(stdout);
int num_of_DONE = 0 ;
if(rank == 0){ //MASTER NODE
while (1) {
MPI_Recv(&buffer, 1, MPI_INT, MPI_ANY_SOURCE, MPI_ANY_TAG, MPI_COMM_WORLD, &status);
printf("root recev %d from %d with tag = %d\n" , buffer , status.MPI_SOURCE , status.MPI_TAG );fflush(stdout);
if (status.MPI_TAG == DONE)
num_of_DONE++;
printf("num_of_DONE=%d\n" , num_of_DONE);fflush(stdout);
if(num_of_DONE == size -1)
break;
/* Do stuff */
}
}else{ //MANY SLAVE NODES
if(1){
buffer = 66;
MPI_Send(&buffer, 1, MPI_INT, root, 1, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
printf("rank %d sent data.\n" , rank);fflush(stdout);
}
}
if(rank != 0)
{
buffer = 55;
MPI_Send(&buffer, 1, MPI_INT, root, DONE, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
}
MPI_Barrier(MPI_COMM_WORLD);
printf("rank %d done.\n" , rank);fflush(stdout);
MPI_Finalize();
return 0;
}
output:
hosam@hosamPPc:~/Desktop$ mpicc -o aa aa.c
hosam@hosamPPc:~/Desktop$ mpirun -n 3 ./aa
here is rank 2 with size=3
here is rank 0 with size=3
rank 2 sent data.
here is rank 1 with size=3
rank 1 sent data.
root recev 66 from 1 with tag = 1
num_of_DONE=0
root recev 66 from 2 with tag = 1
num_of_DONE=0
root recev 55 from 2 with tag = 888
num_of_DONE=1
root recev 55 from 1 with tag = 888
num_of_DONE=2
rank 0 done.
rank 1 done.
rank 2 done.
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