Process j sends the k-th block of its local \fIsendbuf\fP to process
k, which places the data in the j-th block of its local
\fIrecvbuf\fP.
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When a pair of processes exchanges data, each may pass different
element count and datatype arguments so long as the sender specifies
the same amount of data to send (in bytes) as the receiver expects
to receive.
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Note that process i may send a different amount of data to process j
than it receives from process j. Also, a process may send entirely
different amounts and types of data to different processes in the
communicator.
WHEN COMMUNICATOR IS AN INTER-COMMUNICATOR
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When the communicator is an inter-communicator, the gather operation occurs in two phases. The data is gathered from all the members of the first group and received by all the members of the second group. Then the data is gathered from all the members of the second group and received by all the members of the first. The operation exhibits a symmetric, full-duplex behavior.
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The first group defines the root process. The root process uses MPI_ROOT as the value of \fIroot\fR. All other processes in the first group use MPI_PROC_NULL as the value of \fIroot\fR. All processes in the second group use the rank of the root process in the first group as the value of \fIroot\fR.
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When the communicator is an intra-communicator, these groups are the same, and the operation occurs in a single phase.
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.SHNOTES
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The MPI_IN_PLACE option is not available for any form of all-to-all
communication.
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The specification of counts, types, and displacements should not cause
any location to be written more than once.
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All arguments on all processes are significant. The \fIcomm\fP argument,
in particular, must describe the same communicator on all processes.
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The offsets of \fIsdispls\fP and \fIrdispls\fP are measured in bytes.
Compare this to MPI_Alltoallv, where these offsets are measured in units
of \fIsendtype\fP and \fIrecvtype\fP, respectively.
.SHERRORS
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Almost all MPI routines return an error value; C routines as
the value of the function and Fortran routines in the last argument. C++
functions do not return errors. If the default error handler is set to
MPI::ERRORS_THROW_EXCEPTIONS, then on error the C++ exception mechanism
will be used to throw an MPI:Exception object.
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Before the error value is returned, the current MPI error handler is
called. By default, this error handler aborts the MPI job, except for
I/O function errors. The error handler may be changed with
MPI_Comm_set_errhandler; the predefined error handler MPI_ERRORS_RETURN
may be used to cause error values to be returned. Note that MPI does not
guarantee that an MPI program can continue past an error.