This local routine allows the calling process to determine the type of a communicator. It returns true for an intercommunicator, false for an intracommunicator.
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The type of communicator also affects the value returned by three other functions. When dealing with an intracommunicator (enables communication within a single group), the functions listed below return the expected values, group size, group, and rank. When dealing with an inter-communicator, however, they return the following values:
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MPI_Comm_size Returns the size of the local group.
MPI_Comm_group Returns the local group.
MPI_Comm_rank Returns the rank in the local group.
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To return the remote group and remote group size of an inter-communicator, use the MPI_Comm_remote_group and MPI_Comm_remote_size functions.
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The operation MPI_Comm_compare is valid for intercommunicators. Both communicators must be either intra- or intercommunicators, or else MPI_UNEQUAL results. Both corresponding local and remote groups must compare correctly to get the results MPI_CONGRUENT and MPI_SIMILAR. In particular, it is possible for MPI_SIMILAR to result because either the local or remote groups were similar but not identical.
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The following accessors provide consistent access to the remote group of an
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.
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.
