mpi_wait.3

MPI stands for the Message Passing Interface. Written by the MPI Forum (a large committee comprising

.\"Copyright 2007, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
.\" Copyright (c) 1996 Thinking Machines Corporation
.TH MPI_Wait 3OpenMPI "March 2007" "Open MPI 1.2" " "
.SH NAME
\fBMPI_Wait\fP \- Waits for an MPI send or receive to complete.

.SH SYNTAX
.ft R
.SH C Syntax
.nf
#include <mpi.h>
int MPI_Wait(MPI_Request *\fIrequest\fP, MPI_Status\fI *status\fP)

.SH Fortran Syntax
.nf
INCLUDE 'mpif.h'
MPI_WAIT(\fIREQUEST, STATUS, IERROR\fP)
	INTEGER	\fIREQUEST, STATUS(MPI_STATUS_SIZE), IERROR\fP 

.SH C++ Syntax
.nf
#include <mpi.h>
void Request::Wait(Status& \fIstatus\fP)

void Request::Wait() 

.SH INPUT PARAMETER
.ft R
.TP 1i
request      
Request (handle).
.sp
.SH OUTPUT PARAMETERS
.ft R
.TP 1i
status      
Status object (status).
.ft R
.TP 1i
IERROR
Fortran only: Error status (integer). 

.SH DESCRIPTION
.ft R
A call to MPI_Wait returns when the operation identified by request is complete. If the communication object associated with this request was created by a nonblocking send or receive call, then the object is deallocated by the call to MPI_Wait and the request handle is set to MPI_REQUEST_NULL. 
.sp
The call returns, in status, information on the completed operation. The content of the status object for a receive operation can be accessed as described in Section 3.2.5 of the MPI-1 Standard, "Return Status." The status object for a send operation may be queried by a call to MPI_Test_cancelled (see Section 3.8 of the MPI-1 Standard, "Probe and Cancel").
.sp
If your application does not need to examine the \fIstatus\fP field, you can save resources by using the predefined constant MPI_STATUS_IGNORE as a special value for the \fIstatus\fP argument. 
.sp
One is allowed to call MPI_Wait with a null or inactive request argument. In this case the operation returns immediately with empty status. 

.NOTES
Successful return of MPI_Wait after an MPI_Ibsend implies that the user send buffer can be reused  i.e., data has been sent out or copied into a buffer attached with MPI_Buffer_attach. Note that, at this point, we can no longer cancel the send (for more information, see Section 3.8 of the MPI-1 Standard, "Probe and Cancel"). If a matching receive is never posted, then the buffer cannot be freed. This runs somewhat counter to the stated goal of MPI_Cancel (always being able to free program space that was committed to the communication subsystem). 
.sp
Example: Simple usage of nonblocking operations and  MPI_Wait. 
.sp
.nf
    CALL MPI_COMM_RANK(comm, rank, ierr) 
    IF(rank.EQ.0) THEN 
        CALL MPI_ISEND(a(1), 10, MPI_REAL, 1, tag, comm, request, ierr) 
        **** do some computation **** 
        CALL MPI_WAIT(request, status, ierr) 
    ELSE 
        CALL MPI_IRECV(a(1), 15, MPI_REAL, 0, tag, comm, request, ierr) 
        **** do some computation **** 
        CALL MPI_WAIT(request, status, ierr) 
    END IF 
.ni

.SH ERRORS
Almost all MPI routines return an error value; C routines as the value of the function and Fortran routines in the last argument. C++ functions do not return errors. If the default error handler is set to MPI::ERRORS_THROW_EXCEPTIONS, then on error the C++ exception mechanism will be used to throw an MPI::Exception object.
.sp
Before the error value is returned, the current MPI error handler is
called. By default, this error handler aborts the MPI job, except for
I/O function errors. The error handler may be changed with
MPI_Comm_set_errhandler, MPI_File_set_errhandler, or
MPI_Win_set_errhandler (depending on the type of MPI handle that
generated the request); the predefined error handler MPI_ERRORS_RETURN
may be used to cause error values to be returned. Note that MPI does
not guarantee that an MPI program can continue past an error.
.sp
Note that per MPI-1 section 3.2.5, MPI exceptions on requests passed
to MPI_WAIT do not set the status.MPI_ERROR field in the returned
status.  The error code is passed to the back-end error handler
and may be passed back to the caller through the return value of
MPI_WAIT if the back-end error handler returns it.  The
pre-defined MPI error handler MPI_ERRORS_RETURN exhibits this
behavior, for example.

.SH SEE ALSO
.ft R
.sp
MPI_Comm_set_errhandler
.br
MPI_File_set_errhandler
.br
MPI_Test
.br
MPI_Testall
.br
MPI_Testany
.br
MPI_Testsome
.br
MPI_Waitall
.br
MPI_Waitany
.br
MPI_Waitsome
.br
MPI_Win_set_errhandler
.br

' @(#)MPI_Wait.3 1.20 06/03/09