Debugging mapped parallel programs

Abstract

As more sophisticated tools for parallel programming become available, programmers will inevitably want to use them together. However, some parallel programming tools can interact with each other in ways that make them less useful. In particular, it a mapping tool is used to adapt a parallel program to run on relatively few processors, the information presented by a debugger may become difficult to interpret. The authors examine the problems that can arise when programmers use debuggers to interpret the patterns of message traffic in mapped parallel programs. They also suggest how to avoid these problems and made debugging tools more useful.<>