Messages and point-to-point communication in MPI

The simplest method to communicate with MPI is point-to-point communication between two specific processes, a sender and a receiver.

Prerequisites

  • MPI process model and language bindings

Software setup

The lesson

Reference

Learning outcomes

Objectives

  • Use blocking point-to-point communication in MPI

See also

Credit

These course materials are based on the MPI course developed by Rolf Rabenseifner, HLRS at the University of Stuttgart that is copyrighted by the HLRS at the University of Stuttgart. The copyrighted materials (some images, some exercise descriptions, some code snippets) are used with permission. Some parts taken from the HLRS materials are modified and extended.

Please contact training@asc.ac.at if you want to reuse these course materials in your teaching or if you would like to contribute or found any issues.

License

CC BY-SA for media and pedagogical material

Copyright © 2026 Claudia Blaas-Schenner and Victoria Döller (ASC Research Center, TU Wien). This material is released by Claudia Blaas-Schenner and Victoria Döller (ASC Research Center, TU Wien) under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Canonical URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

See the legal code

You are free to

  1. Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially.

  2. Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

  3. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Under the following terms

  1. Attribution — You must give appropriate credit , provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made . You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

  2. ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

  3. No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Notices

You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation .

No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.

This deed highlights only some of the key features and terms of the actual license. It is not a license and has no legal value. You should carefully review all of the terms and conditions of the actual license before using the licensed material.

MIT for source code and code snippets

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2026, EVITA project, Claudia Blaas-Schenner and Victoria Döller (ASC Research Center, TU Wien)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.