Handling distributed data in Vienna Fortran procedures

Abstract

Vienna Fortran is a language extension of Fortran which provides the user with a wide range of facilities for the distribution of data structures across the processors of a distributed-memory multiprocessing machine. In contrast to current programming practice, programs in Vienna Fortran are written using global data references. Thus, the user has the advantages of a shared memory programming paradigm while explicitly controlling the data distribution. In this paper, we specify the mechanisms in Vienna Fortran that control the transfer of distributed arrays to procedures, and illustrate a number of applications.