HISTORY.txt

=======================
HISTORY: MPI for Python
=======================

:Author:       Lisandro Dalcin
:Contact:      dalcinl@gmail.com
:Web Site:     http://mpi4py.googlecode.com/
:Organization: CIMEC <http://www.cimec.org.ar>
:Address:      CCT CONICET, 3000 Santa Fe, Argentina


Release 1.3 [2012-01-20]
========================

* Now ``Comm.recv()`` accept a buffer to receive the message.

* Add ``Comm.irecv()`` and ``Request.{wait|test}[any|all]()``.

* Add ``Intracomm.Spawn_multiple()``.

* Better buffer handling for PEP 3118 and legacy buffer interfaces.

* Add support for attribute attribute caching on communicators,
  datatypes and windows.

* Install MPI-enabled Python interpreter as
  ``<path>/mpi4py/bin/python-mpi``.

* Windows: Support for building with Open MPI.


Release 1.2.2 [2010-09-13]
==========================

* Add ``mpi4py.get_config()`` to retrieve information (compiler
  wrappers, includes, libraries, etc) about the MPI implementation
  employed to build mpi4py.

* Workaround Python libraries with missing GILState-related API calls
  in case of non-threaded Python builds.

* Windows: look for MPICH2, DeinoMPI, Microsoft HPC Pack at their
  default install locations under %ProgramFiles.

* MPE: fix hacks related to old API's, these hacks are broken when MPE
  is built with a MPI implementations other than MPICH2.

* HP-MPI: fix for missing Fortran datatypes, use dlopen() to load the
  MPI shared library before MPI_Init()

* Many distutils-related fixes, cleanup, and enhancements, better
  logics to find MPI compiler wrappers.

* Support for ``pip install mpi4py``.


Release 1.2.1 [2010-02-26]
==========================

* Fix declaration in Cython include file. This declaration, while
  valid for Cython, broke the simple-minded parsing used in
  conf/mpidistutils.py to implement configure-tests for availability
  of MPI symbols.

* Update SWIG support and make it compatible with Python 3. Also
  generate an warning for SWIG < 1.3.28.

* Fix distutils-related issues in Mac OS X. Now ARCHFLAGS environment
  variable is honored of all Python's ``config/Makefile`` variables.

* Fix issues with Open MPI < 1.4.2 releated to error checking and
  ``MPI_XXX_NULL`` handles.


Release 1.2 [2009-12-29]
========================

* Automatic MPI datatype discovery for NumPy arrays and PEP-3118
  buffers. Now buffer-like objects can be messaged directly, it is no
  longer required to explicitly pass a 2/3-list/tuple like ``[data,
  MPI.DOUBLE]``, or ``[data, count, MPI.DOUBLE]``. Only basic types
  are supported, i.e., all C/C99-native signed/unsigned integral types
  and single/double precision real/complex floating types. Many thanks
  to Eilif Muller for the initial feedback.

* Nonblocking send of pickled Python objects. Many thanks to Andreas
  Kloeckner for the initial patch and enlightening discussion about
  this enhancement.

* ``Request`` instances now hold a reference to the Python object
  exposing the buffer involved in point-to-point communication or
  parallel I/O. Many thanks to Andreas Kloeckner for the initial
  feedback.

* Support for logging of user-defined states and events using `MPE
  <http://www.mcs.anl.gov/research/projects/perfvis/>`_. Runtime
  (i.e., without requiring a recompile!)  activation of logging of all
  MPI calls is supported in POSIX platforms implementing ``dlopen()``.

* Support for all the new features in MPI-2.2 (new C99 and F90
  datatypes, distributed graph topology, local reduction operation,
  and other minor enhancements).

* Fix the annoying issues related to Open MPI and Python dynamic
  loading of extension modules in platforms supporting ``dlopen()``.

* Fix SLURM dynamic loading issues on SiCortex. Many thanks to Ian
  Langmore for providing me shell access.


Release 1.1.0 [2009-06-06]
==========================

* Fix bug in ``Comm.Iprobe()`` that caused segfaults as Python C-API
  calls were issued with the GIL released (issue #2).

* Add ``Comm.bsend()`` and ``Comm.ssend()`` for buffered and
  synchronous send semantics when communicating general Python
  objects.

* Now the call ``Info.Get(key)`` return a *single* value (i.e, instead
  of a 2-tuple); this value is ``None`` if ``key`` is not in the
  ``Info`` object, or a string otherwise. Previously, the call
  redundantly returned ``(None, False)`` for missing key-value pairs;
  ``None`` is enough to signal a missing entry.

* Add support for parametrized Fortran datatypes.

* Add support for decoding user-defined datatypes.

* Add support for user-defined reduction operations on memory
  buffers. However, at most 16 user-defined reduction operations
  can be created. Ask the author for more room if you need it.


Release 1.0.0 [2009-03-20]
==========================

This is the fist release of the all-new, Cython-based, implementation
of *MPI for Python*. Unfortunately, this implementation is not
backward-compatible with the previous one. The list below summarizes
the more important changes that can impact user codes.

* Some communication calls had *overloaded* functionality. Now there
  is a clear distinction between communication of general Python
  object with *pickle*, and (fast, near C-speed) communication of
  buffer-like objects (e.g., NumPy arrays).

  - for communicating general Python objects, you have to use
    all-lowercase methods, like ``send()``, ``recv()``, ``bcast()``,
    etc.

  - for communicating array data, you have to use ``Send()``,
    ``Recv()``, ``Bcast()``, etc. methods. Buffer arguments to these
    calls must be explicitly specified by using a 2/3-list/tuple like
    ``[data, MPI.DOUBLE]``, or ``[data, count, MPI.DOUBLE]`` (the
    former one uses the byte-size of ``data`` and the extent of the
    MPI datatype to define the ``count``).

* Indexing a communicator with an integer returned a special object
  associating the communication with a target rank, alleviating you
  from specifying source/destination/root arguments in point-to-point
  and collective communications. This functionality is no longer
  available, expressions like::

     MPI.COMM_WORLD[0].Send(...)
     MPI.COMM_WORLD[0].Recv(...)
     MPI.COMM_WORLD[0].Bcast(...)

  have to be replaced by::

     MPI.COMM_WORLD.Send(..., dest=0)
     MPI.COMM_WORLD.Recv(..., source=0)
     MPI.COMM_WORLD.Bcast(..., root=0)

* Automatic MPI initialization (i.e., at import time) requests the
  maximum level of MPI thread support (i.e., it is done by calling
  ``MPI_Init_thread()`` and passing ``MPI_THREAD_MULTIPLE``). In case
  you need to change this behavior, you can tweak the contents of the
  ``mpi4py.rc`` module.

* In order to obtain the values of predefined attributes attached to
  the world communicator, now you have to use the ``Get_attr()``
  method on the ``MPI.COMM_WORLD`` instance::

     tag_ub = MPI.COMM_WORLD.Get_attr(MPI.TAG_UB)

* In the previous implementation, ``MPI.COMM_WORLD`` and
  ``MPI.COMM_SELF`` were associated to **duplicates** of the (C-level)
  ``MPI_COMM_WORLD`` and ``MPI_COMM_SELF`` predefined communicator
  handles. Now this is no longer the case, ``MPI.COMM_WORLD`` and
  ``MPI.COMM_SELF`` proxies the **actual** ``MPI_COMM_WORLD`` and
  ``MPI_COMM_SELF`` handles.

* Convenience aliases ``MPI.WORLD`` and ``MPI.SELF`` were removed. Use
  instead ``MPI.COMM_WORLD`` and ``MPI.COMM_SELF``.

* Convenience constants ``MPI.WORLD_SIZE`` and ``MPI.WORLD_RANK`` were
  removed. Use instead ``MPI.COMM_WORLD.Get_size()`` and
  ``MPI.COMM_WORLD.Get_rank()``.