Abstract

Despite their importance in scientific computation, arrays have posed a serious persistent challenge to the efficient implementation of functional languages. In this paper, we propose a new monolithic array constructor which provides a solution to two major problems arising in the implementation of monolithic arrays: (1) the overhead of scheduling and synchronization for recursively defined arrays; (2) the copying of the many intermediate arrays during array construction. Our array constructor allows an index domain to be constructed from a set of rectangular index regions and combinations of these. An ordered sequence of regions may be specified in a fashion which can be checked by a compiler using simple subscript analysis techniques. An array is also allowed to be monotonically defined in an iterative fashion without using incremental array update operations. Program examples arising in scientific computation are used to illustrate the principles and advantages of the new constructo...

Citations