Algorithm 821: A Fortran interface to POSIX threads

ABSTRACT

Pthreads is the library of POSIX standard functions for concurrent, multithreaded programming. The POSIX standard only defines an application programming interface (API) to the C programming language, not to Fortran. Many scientific and engineering applications are written in Fortran. Also, many of these applications exhibit functional, or task-level, concurrency. They would benefit from multithreading, especially on symmetric multiprocessors (SMP). We present here an interface to that part of the Pthreads library that is compatible with standard Fortran. The contribution consists of two primary source files: a Fortran module and a collection of C wrappers to Pthreads functions. The Fortran module defines the data structures, interface and initialization routines used to manage threads. The stability and portability of the Fortran API to Pthreads has been demonstrated using common mathematical computations on several SMP systems.

REFERENCES

• 1: Jeanne C. Adams , Brian T. Smith , Jeanne T. Martin , Walter S. Brainerd , Jerrold L. Wagener, FORTRAN 95 Handbook, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997
• 2: Breshears, C. P., Gabb, H. A., and Bova, S. W. 1998. Towards a Fortran 90 Interface to the POSIX Threads Library. In Proceedings of the 1998 DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program Users Group Conference, Houston, TX (June).
• 3: David R. Butenhof, Programming with POSIX threads, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1997
• 4: Al Geist , Adam Beguelin , Jack Dongarra , Weicheng Jiang , Robert Manchek , Vaidy Sunderam, PVM: Parallel virtual machine: a users' guide and tutorial for networked parallel computing, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995
• 5: Hanson, R. J., Breshears, C. P., and Gabb, H. A. 2000. A Fortran Interface to POSIX Threads. Tech. Rep. 00-18 (May), ERDC MSRC/PET.
• 6: IEEE Standards Press. 1996. 9945-1:1996 (ISO/IEC) {IEEE/ANSI Std 1003.1 1996 Edition} Information Technology--Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX)--Part 1: System Application: Program Interface (API) {C Language} (ANSI). IEEE Standards Press.
• 7: Bil Lewis , Daniel J. Berg, Multithreaded programming with Pthreads, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1998
• 8: Bradford Nichols , Dick Buttlar , Jacqueline Proulx Farrell, Pthreads programming, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., Sebastopol, CA, 1996
• 9: Marc Snir , Steve Otto, MPI-The Complete Reference: The MPI Core, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.1 PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES
      D.1.3 Concurrent Programming
          Subjects: Parallel programming

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.2 Language Classifications

          Nouns: FORTRAN
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS
      D.4.9 Systems Programs and Utilities

          Nouns: POSIX

  G. Mathematics of Computing
  G.4 MATHEMATICAL SOFTWARE

General Terms:
Algorithms, Languages, Performance, Standardization

Keywords:
Fortran, POSIX Threads, Pthreads, Scientific computing, mathematical software, symmetric multi-processor