README.md

Modern Fortran implementation of a template method pattern with two hardware backend specialisations (pure CPU and CPU/GPU backends).

Given an array of numbers $\mathbf{a} = [a_1, ... a_n]$, we want to compute

$$R = f(\mathbf{a}) + g(\mathbf{a})$$

with f(a) = sum(a + 1) and g(a) = max(a * 2).

Given an input array a, the algorithm is

1. Compute f(a)
2. Compute g(a)
3. Compute f(a) + g(a)

This algorithm only depends on the interface of f and g: their argument and what they return. Conversely, it does not depend on the actual implementation of f and g.

Compiling and running the programs

cd backends_example
FC=nvfortran cmake -S . -B build

The above builds three executables:

1. main_cpu: CPU-only version.
2. main_gpu: Version with f and g implemented as accelerated GPU kernels.
3. main_hybrid: Execution of GPU kernels is enabled/disabled at runtime.

From the build directory:

$ make main_hybrid # Build once, run everywhere.
./main_hybrid
Executing on CPU only
    184.000
$ ./main_hybrid --gpu
Executing CUDA kernels
    184.00

Implementation

The algorithm itself is defined once as a bound procedure doit to the abstract type basetype (base.f90). This type is abstract because, although doit is defined, f and g are not. This makes instanciating a object of type basetype impossible. The point is that we can now extend basetype with concrete types providing a definition for both functions.

The basetype abstract type is extended by cputype (cpu/cpu.f90) and gputype (gpu/gpu.f90). The former implements f and g using standard Fortran to be executed on a CPU. The latter, gputype, provides an implementation of f and g based on CUDA Fortran, using kernel procedures to be executed on NVIDIA GPUs.

The input array $\mathbf{a}$ is abstracted into a memblock (memblock.f90) type (memory block). The cpublock (cpu/cpublock.f90) type holds an allocatable real array, whilst the gpublock (gpu/gpublock) holds an allocatable real device array.

The current (main_hybrid.f90) implementation uses a pointer to the right type depending on the execution target:

  case('gpu')
     gpublk = gpublock(16); blk => gpublk

An preferable approach would be to rely on automatic (re)allocation of polymorphic entities

class(memblock), allocatable :: blk

case('gpu')
   blk = gpublock(16) ! Automatic allocation of the dynamic type

Unfortunately this is not supported by the NVIDIA Fortran compiler (nvfortran 22.5).