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MPI_Unpack_external - Reads data from a portable format
int MPI_Unpack_external(const char datarep, const void *inbuf,
MPI_Aint insize, MPI_Aint *position,
void *outbuf, int outcount,
MPI_UNPACK_EXTERNAL(DATAREP, INBUF, INSIZE, POSITION,
OUTBUF, OUTCOUNT, DATATYPE, IERROR)
INTEGER OUTCOUNT, DATATYPE, IERROR
INTEGER (KIND=MPI_ADDRESS_KIND) INSIZE, POSITION
<type> INBUF(*), OUTBUF(*)
void MPI::Datatype::Unpack_external(const char* datarep,
const void* inbuf, MPI::Aint insize,
MPI_Aint& position, void *outbuf,
int outcount) const
- Data Representation (string).
buffer start (choice).
- Size of input buffer, in bytes (integer).
- Number of items to be unpacked (integer).
- Datatype of each output data item (handle).
- Current position in buffer, in bytes (integer).
MPI_Unpack_external unpacks data from the external32 format,
a universal data representation defined by the MPI Forum. This format is
useful for exchanging data between MPI implementations, or when writing
data to a file.
- Output buffer start (choice).
- Fortran only: Error status (integer).
The input buffer is a contiguous storage area pointed to
by inbuf containing insize bytes. The output buffer can be any communication
buffer allowed in MPI_Recv, and is specified by outbuf, outcount, and datatype.
The input value of position is the first position in inbuf to be read for
unpacking (measured in bytes, not elements, relative to the start of the
buffer). When the function returns, position is incremented by the size
of the packed message, so that it points to the first location in inbuf
following the message that was unpacked. This way it may be used as input
to a subsequent call to MPI_Unpack_external.
Note the difference between
MPI_Recv and MPI_Unpack_external: In MPI_Recv, the count argument specifies
the maximum number of items that can be received. In MPI_Unpack_external,
the outcount argument specifies the actual number of items that are to
be unpacked. With a regular receive operation, the incoming message size
determines the number of components that will be received. With MPI_Unpack_external,
it is up to the user to specify how many components to unpack, since the
user may wish to unpack the received message multiple times into various
To understand the behavior of pack and unpack, it is convenient
to think of the data part of a message as being the sequence obtained by
concatenating the successive values sent in that message. The pack operation
stores this sequence in the buffer space, as if sending the message to
that buffer. The unpack operation retrieves this sequence from buffer space,
as if receiving a message from that buffer. (It is helpful to think of internal
Fortran files or sscanf in C for a similar function.)
Several messages can
be successively packed into one packing unit. This is effected by several
successive related calls to MPI_Pack_external, where the first call provides
position=0, and each successive call inputs the value of position that
was output by the previous call, along with the same values for outbuf
and outcount. This packing unit now contains the equivalent information
that would have been stored in a message by one send call with a send buffer
that is the "concatenation" of the individual send buffers.
A packing unit
can be sent using type MPI_BYTE. Any point-to-point or collective communication
function can be used to move the sequence of bytes that forms the packing
unit from one process to another. This packing unit can now be received
using any receive operation, with any datatype: The type-matching rules
are relaxed for messages sent with type MPI_BYTE.
A packing unit can be
unpacked into several successive messages. This is effected by several successive
related calls to MPI_Unpack_external, where the first call provides position=0,
and each successive call inputs the value of position that was output by
the previous call, and the same values for inbuf and insize.
of two packing units is not necessarily a packing unit; nor is a substring
of a packing unit necessarily a packing unit. Thus, one cannot concatenate
two packing units and then unpack the result as one packing unit; nor can
one unpack a substring of a packing unit as a separate packing unit. Each
packing unit that was created by a related sequence of pack calls must
be unpacked as a unit by a sequence of related unpack calls.
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
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;
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.
See the MPI man page for a full list of MPI
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