On Fri, 2008-07-11 at 07:42 -0600, Ralph H Castain wrote:
>
>
> On 7/11/08 7:32 AM, "Ashley Pittman" <apitt...@concurrent-thinking.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, 2008-07-11 at 07:20 -0600, Ralph H Castain wrote:
> >> This variable is only for internal use and has no applicability to a user.
> >> Basically, it is used by the local daemon to tell an application process
> >> its
> >> rank when launched.
> >>
> >> Note that it disappears in v1.3...so I wouldn't recommend looking for it.
> >> Is
> >> there something you are trying to do with it?
> >
> > Recently on this list I recommended somebody use it for their needs.
> >
> > http://www.open-mpi.org/community/lists/users/2008/06/5983.php
>
> Ah - yeah, that one slid by me. I'll address it directly.
I was quite surprised that openmpi didn't have a command option for this
actually, it's quite a common thing to use.
> >> Reason I ask: some folks wanted to know things like the MPI rank prior to
> >> calling MPI_Init, so we added a few MPI envar's that are available from
> >> beginning of process execution, if that is what you are looking for.
> >
> > It's also essential for Valgrind support which can use it to name
> > logfiles according to rank using the --log-file=valgrind.out.%
> > q{OMPI_MCA_ns_nds_vpid} option.
>
> Well, it won't hurt for now - but it won't work with 1.3 or beyond. It's
> always risky to depend upon a code's internal variables as developers feel
> free to change those as circumstances dictate since users aren't supposed to
> be affected.
>
> I believe this is partly what motivated the creation of the MPI envars - to
> create a vehicle that -would- be guaranteed stable for just these purposes.
> The concern was that users were doing things that accessed internal envars
> which we changed from version to version. The new envars will remain fixed.
Absolutely, these are useful time and time again so should be part of
the API and hence stable. Care to mention what they are and I'll add it
to my note as something to change when upgrading to 1.3 (we are looking
at testing a snapshot in the near future).
Ashley Pittman.
