George and I were talking about ORTE's error handling the other day in regards to the right way to deal with errors in the updated OOB. Specifically, it seemed a bad idea for a library such as ORTE to be aborting the job on its own prerogative. If we lose a connection or cannot send a message, then we really should just report it upwards and let the application and/or upper layers decide what to do about it.
The current code base only allows a single error callback to exist, which seemed unduly limiting. So, based on the conversation, I've modified the errmgr interface to provide a mechanism for registering any number of error handlers (this replaces the current "set_fault_callback" API). When an error occurs, these handlers will be called in order until one responds that the error has been "resolved" - i.e., no further action is required - by returning OMPI_SUCCESS. The default MPI layer error handler is specified to go "last" and calls mpi_abort, so the current "abort" behavior is preserved unless other error handlers are registered.
In the register_callback function, I provide an "order" param so you can specify "this callback must come first" or "this callback must come last". Seemed to me that we will probably have different code areas registering callbacks, and one might require it go first (the default "abort" will always require it go last). So you can append and prepend, or go first. Note that only one registration can declare itself "first" or "last", and since the default "abort" callback automatically takes "last", that one isn't available. :-)
The errhandler callback function passes an opal_pointer_array of structs, each of which contains the name of the proc involved (which can be yourself for internal errors) and the error code. This is a change from the current fault callback which returned an opal_pointer_array of just process names. Rationale is that you might need to see the cause of the error to decide what action to take. I realize that isn't a requirement for remote procs, but remember that we will use the SAME interface to report RTE errors internal to the proc itself. In those cases, you really do need to see the error code. It is legal to pass a NULL for the pointer array (e.g., when reporting an internal failure without error code), so handlers must be prepared for that possibility. If people find that too burdensome, we can remove it.
Should we ever decide to create a separate callback path for internal errors vs remote process failures, or if we decide to do something different based on experience, then we can adjust this API.
This commit was SVN r28852.
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