Variable Scoping Inside OpenMP Parallel Regions

Variable Scoping Inside OpenMP Parallel Regions

One of the trickier aspects of parallelization is the scoping of variables used in the parallel region. In Listing 7.24, there are four variables used in the parallel region: i, length, array1, and array2. The variables can be scoped either as shared, so each thread shares the same variable, or as private, where each thread gets its own copy of the variable.

The loop counter i needs to be private to each thread so that each thread gets its own copy of the variable. The variables array1 and array2 are shared. Each thread works on a separate range of values, so there is no actual sharing of data. The variable length is also shared between the threads, but since it is not modified, it does not mat-ter whether it is scoped as shared or private. It is possible to see how the Solaris Studio compiler has scoped these variables using the code analysis tool er_src on the gener-ated object file, as shown in Listing 7.24.

Listing 7.24   Using er_src to Examine Variable Scoping for Parallel Region

% cc -c -g -O -xopenmp -xloopinfo omploop.c "omploop.c", line 4: PARALLELIZED, user pragma used

% er_src omploop.o

...

1.void calc( double * array1, double * array2, int length )

2.{

<Function: calc>

Source OpenMP region below has tag R1

Private variables in R1: i

Shared variables in R1: array2, length, array1

3.   #pragma omp parallel for

Source loop below has tag L1

L1 parallelized by explicit user directive

...

4.   for( int i=0; i<length; i++ )

5.   {

6.     array1[i] += array2[i];

7.   }

}

The rules governing the default variable scoping in OpenMP are quite complex. The simplified summary of the rules is that they define the loop induction variable as being private, variables defined in the parallel code as being private, and variables defined out-side the parallel region as being shared. This should be appropriate in simple situations but may not be appropriate in more complex ones. In these situations, it is better to manually define the variable scoping. The default scoping rules can be disabled using the clause default(none), which will cause the compiler to issue an error for any variables whose scoping is not specified. Variables can be scoped as private or shared using the clause private(variables) or shared(variables), respectively. Listing 7.25 shows the original source modified to manually specify variable scoping.

Listing 7.25   Loop Parallelized Using OpenMP with Explicitly Stated Variable Scoping

void calc( double* array1, double * array2, int length )

{

int i;

#pragma omp parallel for private(i) shared(length, array1, array2)

for ( i=0; i<length; i++ )

{

array1[i] += array2[i];

}

}