openPMD/openPMD-api

Filesystem: Consider mpifileutils?

Open

#687 opened on Feb 18, 2020

View on GitHubContributor guide
 (0 comments) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)C++ (57 forks)auto 404
MPIfeature requestgood first issuehelp wantedinternalrefactoring

Repository metrics

Stars
 (160 stars)
PR merge metrics
 (PR metrics pending)

Description

We currently ship our own set of filesystem functions to create / handle dirs and files on the OS we support.

Much of it could be simplified with C++ filesystem support, which is still not production ready in tooling and broad support.

On top of that, for MPI-parallel operations such as an mkdir -p for a series, we do implement safe but potentially meta-data-server "heavy" operations. We could explore if functionality from mpifileutils can be included/used if this becomes problematic at some point.

Contributor guide

Research direction
Investigate the existing filesystem code in openPMD api and compare it with the capabilities of mpifileutils. Determine if integrating mpifileutils would address performance or complexity concerns for MPI parallel operations like mkdir p. Summarize potential benefits, risks, and implementation effort.
Tech stack
cpp
Domain
backendapi
Issue type
Research
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
Half day
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Mostly clear
Prerequisites
C++MPIGit
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
20