UPC: DISTRIBUTED SHARED MEMORY PROGRAMMING

CHAPTER 2

Programming View and UPC Data Types

Parallel programming languages that are available today represent a diversity of programming models. Depending on the physical structure and incorporated mechanisms of the underlying parallel computer, one or more languages may be preferable to others in both ease of programming and/or delivered performance. Similarly, the organization of the data structures and the flow control of the tasks of a given application algorithm may strongly influence the parallel programming language to be employed. UPC is one such parallel programming language that facilitates general-purpose parallel computing through a set of constructs particularly well suited to the major classes of parallel computers and a wide range of parallel applications. In this chapter we present the foundation principles of parallel programming as reflected by some of the most widely used languages and introduce UPC from the perspective of these same basic concepts to position UPC in the domain of parallel programming. Details of the UPC programming model are presented with a discussion of the memory sharing and thread execution view. The remainder of this chapter covers basic declarations, types, associated storage, and constraints in the light of the UPC memory sharing and execution model.

2.1 PROGRAMMING MODELS

A programming model is simply the abstract view of how data and instructions are stored and how processing takes place as perceived by the programmer [HWA98]. In ...