[comp.sys.sgi] Parallel Programming

lmo@lsr-vax.UUCP ("Lance M. Optican - LMO") (01/31/91)

	Following TFM, I diligently incluided the "-align16" flag
in my compilations.  Now I see info-iris mail saying you don't need
this flag.

	What is the truth?!

----------------------------------------------+--------------------------
   Lance M. Optican			      | uunet.uu.net!lsr-vax!lmo 
   Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research	      | lsr-vax!lmo@uunet.uu.net
   National Eye Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD  |	(301) 496-3549    
----------------------------------------------+--------------------------

Dan Karron@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU (01/31/91)

I happly used the -align16 flag and did not notice anything. Then I
started getting very weird crashes with innocent operations with chars'
and shorts. DBX would indicate a buss error and not show anything wrong
at the source line.

Serious hacking showed that the errors were alignment errors that were
caused by attempting to assign unaligned shorts to something. My
queries to sgi indicated that the -align16, -align32 options were buggy.

Then the question arose why use the -alignNN options, and I pointed to the
man page. After more up and back with sgi, it was determined that you
DON"T need the -alignNN option. You do need 16 BYTE alignment for somethings,
but I don't know what for.

This was a weird one, and many people apparently can live very happly without
ever having problems with the -alignNN options. I appreciate sgi being honest
and admiting the problem.


>Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 09:10:57 EST
>From: "Lance M. Optican - LMO" <uunet.uu.net!lsr-vax!lmo>
>Message-Id: <9101311410.AA02066@>
>To: uunet.uu.net!uunet!brl.mil!info-iris
>Subject: Parallel Programming
>
>
>	Following TFM, I diligently incluided the "-align16" flag
>in my compilations.  Now I see info-iris mail saying you don't need
>this flag.
>
>	What is the truth?!
>
>----------------------------------------------+--------------------------
>   Lance M. Optican			      | uunet.uu.net!lsr-vax!lmo 
>   Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research	      | lsr-vax!lmo@uunet.uu.net
>   National Eye Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD  |	(301) 496-3549    
>----------------------------------------------+--------------------------
>
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| karron@nyu.edu (E-mail alias that will always find me)                      |
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NOTE PHONE NUMBER CHANGE: The Med Ctr has changed from 340 to 263 exchange.

davea@quasar.wpd.sgi.com (David B.Anderson) (02/01/91)

In article <9101311410.AA02066@> lmo@lsr-vax.UUCP ("Lance M. Optican - LMO") writes:
>
>	Following TFM, I diligently incluided the "-align16" flag
>in my compilations.  Now I see info-iris mail saying you don't need
>this flag.
>
>	What is the truth?!

The truth is that there was a miscommunication between the compiler group
and the people preparing the manual:

	Parallel Programming on Silicon Graphics Computer Systems
	007-0770-010

	at:
	Understanding the Basics of Parallel Programming 
	page 2-9,
	2.2.2 Compiler Flags for Multi-Thread Code

The section is wrong. There is no applicable compiler flag. Please do not
use -align16!

Dan Karron (karron@nyu.edu) noticed that there was something wrong and
brought it to our attention December 26, 1990.  Thanks Dan!

We are sorry about this mistake.

Regards,
[ David B. Anderson  Silicon Graphics  (415)335-1548  davea@sgi.com ]
[``What can go wrong?''                           --Calvin to Hobbes]