2. Quick Start: Installation and Test Run

This is version 2.5.0 of Task Oriented Parallel C/C++ (`TOP-C'). See http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/gene/topc.html for general information on obtaining source, overview slides of `TOP-C', previous `TOP-C' applications, etc. Gene Cooperman gene@ccs.neu.edu

It has been tested and works on several workstation architectures. It provides task-oriented parallelism to the end user. The same application source code (or object code) can be executed (or linked) with any of the following communication libraries using the topcc command (a substitute for cc or gcc):

1. a distributed memory library using MPI (MPI subset, mpinu, included in distribution); or
2. a shared memory library using threads; or
3. a single-process sequential library (useful for development and debugging).

To unpack:

gunzip topc.tar.gz tar xvf topc.tar cd topc ./configure make

If you are impatient, you can immediately do:

cd bin make parfactor

and see a demonstration for factoring numbers by a Euclidean sieve. Then try: ./a.out YOUR_NUMBER
Read bin/Makefile for an example of compiling a `TOP-C' program.

If you want to use more or different slave processes, modify `bin/procgroup'. Then, again:

cd bin ./a.out YOUR_NUMBER

And compare with your results using a single slave process:

./a.out --TOPC-num-slaves=1 YOUR_NUMBER

Or investigate what other command-line TOP-C options are available for a.out.

./a.out --TOPC-help

Other TOP-C applications besides parfactor are in the directory `../examples'. For example, if you would like to try `parquicksort.c', then from the `bin' directory, try:

make check TEST_FILE=parquicksort

When you write your own `TOP-C' application, `app.c', make sure that it contains #include <topc.h> at the top, and that you have a procgroup file in the current directory, and then:

bin/topcc --mpi -o app app.c # or else: bin/topc++ --mpi -o app app.cc ./app

`topcc' is a wrapper for your standard C compiler. It accepts all the standard compiler command line options, plus a few more. `topc++' also exists. [NOTE: bin/topcc --help and bin/topc++ --help both work and `doc/topcc.1' exists ]

This might be a good point to download and print at least the first half of the manual, or else make it from the doc directory (cd doc; make pdf; make ps). Note that the table of contents may appear at the end of the documentation after the index. See A. Summary of `TOP-C' Commands, for a list of the `TOP-C' commands. See B. Example `TOP-C' Application, for a simple `TOP-C' example application involving only trivial parallelism. The `examples' subdirectory provides more detailed examples. A tutorial is available from the web page, http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/gene/topc.html.

Finally, if you want to install `TOP-C' permanently, type

./configure # Install in /usr/local ./configure --prefix=$HOME # Install in home directory make install

This adds a man page, an info file (try info topc), etc. HTML documentation is available in the `doc' subdirectory of the `TOP-C' distribution. By default, `TOP-C' will install in `/usr/local', requiring root privilege. If you configure --prefix=$HOME, `TOP-C' will create files in `$HOME/bin', `$HOME/lib', `$HOME/include', `$HOME/man' and `$HOME/info'. If you want to make `TOP-C' with cc instead of gcc, type:

env CC=cc ./configure --cache-file=/dev/null

CFLAGS, CXX (for topc++ and CXXFLAGS can also be set. For other configuration options, type:

./configure --help

Please write the author, Gene Cooperman (gene@ccs.neu.edu), if there are any questions.