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Automating data conversion for heterogeneous distributed shared memory
Author(s) -
Wortman D. B.,
Zhou S.,
Fink S.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
software: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1097-024X
pISSN - 0038-0644
DOI - 10.1002/spe.4380240107
Subject(s) - computer science , compiler , data conversion , representation (politics) , data type , object (grammar) , data access , data sharing , external data representation , parallel computing , distributed computing , source code , code generation , code (set theory) , programming language , computer architecture , operating system , artificial intelligence , medicine , alternative medicine , set (abstract data type) , pathology , key (lock) , politics , political science , law
This paper describes the issues involved in sharing data among processes executing co‐operatively in a heterogeneous computing environment. In a heterogeneous environment, the physical representation of a data object may need to be transformed when the object is moved from one type of processor to another. As a part of a larger project to build a heterogeneous distributed shared memory system we developed an automated tool for generating the conversion routines that are used to implement representation conversion for data objects. We developed a novel method for processing source programs that allowed us to extract detailed information about the physical representation of data objects without access to the source code of the compilers that were generating those representations. A performance comparison with the more general XDR heterogeneous data conversion package shows that the customized conversion routines that we generate are 4 to 8 times faster.