Ring Array Processor: Programmer's Guide to the RAP Libraries

The RAP machine is a high performance DSP-based distributed memory parallel processor developed at ICSI as described in previous technical reports. This report documents the application program interfaces to the high-level computational routines provided by the RAP class libraries corresponding to software release 1.0. It is intended as both an introductory guide and standard library reference for C++ and C programmers undertaking software development for the RAP machine. The RAP library classes and methods documented in this report transparently implement data-parallel operations on distributed memory objects. Thus client programs written to these interfaces automatically achieve scalability across different sized RAP machines. Additionally, the high-level interfaces provide a degree of general hardware independence, increasing the likelihood that client code will port easily to future parallel platforms under development at ICSI. This report also provides an introduction to the internals of the distributed object implementation with tips and examples for programmers wishing to extend the libraries in a structured fashion.

ICSI Technical Report TR-92-060

Technical Report