Newsgroups: comp.parallel.pvm
From: thanasis@news.cs.columbia.edu (Thanasis Tsantilas)
Subject: synchronization
Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science
Date: 3 Aug 1994 15:28:46 -0400
Message-ID: <31or5e$3rt@ground.cs.columbia.edu>


It seems that PVM does not have a netsynch() command which essentially would 
cause processes to wait until all messages in the network have been delivered. 

Consider the following toy problem that suggests the need of such a primitive:
You have N processes, and each picks a random process to send its value. Then
the processes do something with the received values, etc.

The problem here is that processes do not know in advance how many messages 
they are going to receive. Many randomized algorithms are of that nature.

One can think of a few ways to implement a netsynch(), but I'd also like to
know how people treat the problem.

Thanks

Thanasis Tsantilas
Columbia University


