HPF Language Specification, version 1.0 final

Announcing the final version (at least for 1993) of the High
Performance Fortran Language Specification.


The HPF language specification, version 1.0 final, is now available.
This document contains all the technical features proposed for the
language. There have been relatively few technical changes from the
version posted in January, but a goodly number of minor corrections
and revisions for clarity. This draft will not be changed before the
end of this calendar year. However, a new HPFF effort is planned for
calendar year 1993 to consider extensions to this draft (and possibly
changes and corrections).


In addition to the language specification itself, the HPF Journal of
Development is also available. This documents some of the more
important proposals that were not adopted into HPF; we expect many of
them to be reconsidered next year.


Instructions for getting both documents are included below. In a few
cases (notably netlib@ornl.gov), it may take a day or two before a
particular site has the current document on-line. As a general rule,
check whether the date on the file you get is after May 22, 1993 - if
it is, you have the latest draft.


As with previous drafts, the High Performance Fortran Forum welcomes
comments, although they will not be acted upon directly. We will,
however, keep them in mind (and in archives) for the HPFF meetings
next year. General comments can be sent to hpff-comments@cs.rice.edu.


Requests for interpretation can be sent to hpff-interpret@cs.rice.edu.
These comments are read and answered by members of the HPFF committee;
if issues come up that cannot be answered, they are at least put on a
priority list for consideration next year.


In closing, I'd like to thank the net community for its active
involvement in the HPFF process. The language draft would have looked
very different without the active participation of many people in the
high performance community.


Chuck Koelbel
Rice University
HPFF Executive Director


How to Get the High Performance Fortran Language Specification
==============================================================


There are three ways to get a copy of the draft:


1. Anonymous FTP: The most recent draft is available on
titan.cs.rice.edu in the directory public/HPFF/draft.
Several files are kept there, including compressed
Postscript files of previous versions of the draft. The
most current version of this draft is 0.4, which can be
retrieved as a tar file containing LaTeX source
(hpf-v10.tar) or in Postscript format (hpf-v10.ps);
both of these are also available as compressed files.
Several other sites also have the draft available in one or
                      more formats, including think.com, ftp.gmd.de,
theory.tc.cornell.edu, and minerva.npac.syr.edu.


2. Electronic mail: The most recent draft is available from
the Softlib server at Rice University. This can be
accessed in two ways:
A. Send electronic mail to softlib@cs.rice.edu with "send
hpf-v10.ps" in the message body. The report is sent as a
Postscript file.
B. Send electronic mail to softlib@cs.rice.edu with "send
hpf-v10.tar.Z" in the message body. The report is
sent as a uuencodeded compressed tar file containing
LaTeX source.
                          C. Send electronic mail to netlib@ornl.gov with "send
                                hpf-v10.ps from hpf" in the message body. The report
                                is sent as a Postscript file. This site also has the
                                LaTeX source of the draft; use "send index from hpf"
                                to see the file names.
                          D. Send electronic mail to netlib@research.att.com with
"send hpf-v10.ps from hpff" in the message body. The
report is sent as a Postscript file.
(In all cases, the reply is sent as several messages to
avoid mailer restrictions; edit the message bodies together
to obtain the whole file.) The same files can be obtained
from David Loveman (loveman@mpsg.enet.dec.com) and Chuck
Koelbel (chk@cs.rice.edu), but replies will take longer
because real people have to answer the mail.


3. Hardcopy: The most recent draft is available as technical report
CRPC-TR 92225 from the Center for Research on Parallel
Computation at Rice University. Send requests to
Theresa Chatman
CITI/CRPC, Box 1892
Rice University
Houston, TX 77251
There is a charge of $50.00 for this report to cover copying and
mailing costs.


Disclaimers
===========


A few caveats about the HPF draft:


A. The HPF Language Specification does not necessarily
represent the official view of any individual, company,
university, government, or other agency.


B. Please address any questions, and report any possible
inconsistencies in the draft to hpff-interpret@cs.rice.edu.
Include the chapter number you are commenting on in the
"Subject:" line of the message.




Version History
===============


Version 0.1:
August 14, 1992
EXTREMELY preliminary version.


First collection of the proposals active in the High Performance Fortran
Forum. Established much of the outline for later documents, and
represented most decisions made through the July HPFF meeting.




Version 0.2:
September 9, 1992
Version discussed at the September 10-11 HPFF meeting


Changes:
General cleaning up of version 0.1.
Inclusion of most new proposals at that time.




Version 0.3:
October 12, 1992
Version discussed at the October 22-23 HPFF meeting


Changes:
Numerous minor and major changes due to discussions at the September meeting.
Added a section on "Model of Computation".
Presented alternate chapters for data distribution with and without
templates.
Added two proposals for ON clauses specifying where computation is to
be executed.
Added distribution inquiry intrinsics.
Total rewrite of I/O material, sending most previous material to the
Journal of Development.




Version 0.4:
November 6, 1992
Version to be presented at Supercomputing '92


Changes:
Numerous minor and major changes due to discussions at the October
meeting.
"Acknowledgements" section now much more accurate.
"The HPF Model" (replacing "Model of Computation") substantially
simplified and improved.
"Distribution without Templates" chapter removed.
Many proposals not adopted moved to "Journal of Development".




Version 1.0:
January 25, 1993
Draft final version


Changes:
Many changes for clarity or pedagogical reasons.
The examples in several sections have been significantly enlarged.
INHERIT (for dummy arguments) added to distribution chapter.
Pure procedures may now have dummy arguments with explicit
distributions, if those distributions are inherited from the caller.
Changed the names of the new reductions AND, OR, and EOR to IALL,
IANY, and IPARITY.
Clarified the status of the character array language to be not in the
subset, and as a result, removed the character array intrinsics.
Only very restricted forms of alignment subscript expressions (of the
form \(m*i + n\) where \(m\) and \(n\) are integer expressions) are part
of the subset.
[Bibliography] Correctly spelled ``Mehrotra'' and ``Gerndt''.






Version 1.0 final:
May 24, 1993
Final version


Changes:
Better formatting of commentary material, more cross-referencing, and
better explanations of various features throughout.
Split Journal of Development out to another document.
Fixed syntax to be unambiguous in the presence of insignificant
blanks.
Eliminated VIEW directive.
Generalized alignment subscript forms somewhat.
Made PURE a first-class attribute, rather than a directive.
Allowed some forms of ALIGN in PURE procedures.
Made EXTRINSIC a first-class attribute, rather than a directive.
Eliminated the parallel I/O chapter.


--

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