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It is not uncommon for library developers to use one language to  
develop an applications library that may be called by an application program  
  
written in a different language.   MPI currently supports ISO (previously ANSI) C,  
C++, and Fortran bindings.  It should  
  
be possible for applications in any of the supported languages to call  
 MPI-related functions in another language.  
 
Moreover,  MPI allows the development of client-server code, with  MPI  
communication used between a parallel client and a parallel server.  
It should be possible to code the server in  
one language and the clients in another language.  
  
To do so, communications should be possible between applications  
written in different languages.  
  
 
There are several issues that need to be addressed in order to achieve  
interoperability.  
  
 
 
-  
Initialization
-  
We need to specify how the  MPI environment is  
initialized for all languages.  
 
-  
Interlanguage passing of { MPI} opaque objects
-  
We need to specify how  MPI object handles are passed between languages.  
We also need to specify what happens when an  MPI  
object is accessed in one language, to retrieve information (e.g., attributes) set in another language.  
  
 
-  
Interlanguage communication
-  
We need to specify how messages sent in one language can be received  
in another language.  
 
It is highly desirable that the solution for interlanguage interoperability  
be extendable to new languages, should  MPI bindings be defined for  
such languages.  
 



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MPI-2.0 of July 18, 1997
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