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ZPL

A Portable, High Performance
Programming Language for
Science and Engineering Computations



ZPL is a new array programming language designed from first principles for fast execution on both sequential and parallel computers. Because ZPL benefits from recent research in parallel compilation, it provides a convenient high level programming medium for supercomputers with efficiency comparable to handcoded message passing. Users with scientific computing experience can generally learn ZPL in a few hours. Those who have used MATLAB or Fortran 90 may already be acquainted with array programming style.

Characteristics of ZPL. . .

  • ZPL is an array language, so expressions like A+B add whole arrays.
  • ZPL compiles to ANSI C, which is then compiled with a machine-specific library to the target machine. ZPL is presently targeted to the Cray T3D, Cray T3E, Intel Paragon, IBM SP-2, SGI PowerChallenge, SGI Origin, and UNIX workstations.
  • Though new programs should be written entirely in ZPL, the language can interface with legacy sequential C or Fortran codes. In addition, ZPL provides access to scientific libraries.
  • Because ZPL is fully portable, programs are developed on a workstation and simply recompiled for any parallel machine.
  • ZPL is in use at supercomputer centers including San Diego Supercomputer Center, the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center, The National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and Cornell Theory Center.

The following links are specialized to programmers who may wish to use ZPL and CS researchers interested in the technical details of our work.

Programmers who want to try out ZPL or learn more about it can. . .

Computer scientists who want to know more about the results of the ZPL research can. . .

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