Hello,

I am trying to figure out the most appropriate MPI calls for a certain portion of my code.  I will describe the situation here:

Each cell (i,j) of my array A is being updated by a calculation that depends on the values of 1 or 2 of the 4 possible neighbors A(i+1,j), A(i-1,j), A(i,j+1), and A(i,j-1).  Say, for example, A(i,j)=A(i-1,j)*A(i,j-1).  The thing is, the values of the neighbors A(i-1,j) and A(i,j-1) cannot be used until an auxiliary array B has been updated from 0 to 1.  The values B(i-1,j) and B(i,j-1) are changed from 0 -> 1 after the values A(i-1,j) and A(i,j-1) have been communicated to the proc that contains cell (i,j), as cells (i-1,j) and (i,j-1) belong to different procs.  Here is pseudocode for how I have the algorithm implemented (in fortran):

do while (B(ii,jj,kk).eq.0)

     if (probe_for_message(i0,j0,k0,this_sc)) then

          my_ibuf(1)=my_ibuf(1)+1

          A(i0,j0,k0)=this_sc

          B(i0,j0,k0)=1

     end if

end do

The function 'probe_for_message' uses an 'MPI_IPROBE' to see if 'MPI_ANY_SOURCE' has a message for my current proc.  If there is a message, the function returns a true logical and calls 'MPI_RECV', receiving (i0,j0,k0,this_sc) from the proc that has the message.  This works!  My concern is that I am probing repeatedly inside the while loop until I receive a message from a proc such that ii=i0, jj=j0, kk=k0.  I could potentially call MPI_IPROBE many many times before this happens... and I'm worried that this is a messy way of doing this.  Could I "break" the mpi probe call?  Are there MPI routines that would allow me to accomplish the same thing in a more formal or safer way?  Maybe a persistent communication or something?  For very large computations with many procs, I am observing a hanging situation which I suspect may be due to this.  I observe it when using openmpi-1.4.4, and the hanging seems to disappear if I use mvapich.  Any suggestions/comments would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks so much!