Chapel (programming language): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:38, 21 August 2022

Revision as of 18:06, 12 November 2022

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| released = {{Start date and age|2009}}

| designer = David Callahan, Hans Zima, Brad Chamberlain, John Plevyak

| developer = [[Hewlett Packard Enterprise]] (previously [[Cray|Cray Inc.]])

| latest release version = 1.2728.0

| latest release date = {{Start date and age|2022|0609|3015}}

| latest preview version =

| latest preview date = <!-- {{start date and age|2013|10|17}} -->

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| implementations =

| dialects =

| influenced by = [[Ada (programming language)|Ada]], [[C Sharp (programming language)|C#]],<ref name="chplspec">{{cite web|title=Chapel spec (Acknowledgments)|url=http://chapel.cray.com/spec/spec-0.98.pdf|date=2015-10-01|access-date=2016-01-14|publisher=Cray Inc}}</ref> [[C (programming language)|C]], [[Fortran]], [[C++]], [[Java (programming language)|Java]], [[High Performance Fortran|HPF]], [[ZPL (programming language)|ZPL]], [[Cray MTA]] / [[Cray XMT|XMT]] extensions to C and Fortran.<ref name=Overview>{{cite web |url=http://chapel.cray.com/papers/BriefOverviewChapel.pdf |title=A Brief Overview of Chapel |first=Bradford L. |last=Chamberlain |publisher=Cray Inc. |access-date=22 April 2015}}</ref>

| influenced =

| programming language =

| platform = multiplatform, including [[Amazon Web Services]], [[HPE Cray EX]]

| operating system = [[Mac OS]], [[Linux]], [[POSIX]], [[Windows]] (with [[Cygwin]]), [[NetBSD]]

| license = [[Apache License 2.0]]

| website = {{URL|https://chapel-lang.org/}}

| wikibooks =

}}

'''Chapel''', the '''Cascade High Productivity Language''', is a [[parallel programming language]] that was developed by [[Cray]].,<ref>{{cite book |title=Modular programming languages: 7th Joint Modular Languages Conference |url=https://archive.org/details/modularprogrammi00ligh |url-access=limited |first=David E. |last=Lightfoot |year=2006 |isbn=978-3-540-40927-4 |page=[https://archive.org/details/modularprogrammi00ligh/page/n27 20]}}</ref> and later by [[Hewlett Packard Enterprise]] which aquired Cray. It iswas being developed as part of the Cray Cascade project, a participant in [[DARPA]]'s [[High Productivity Computing Systems]] (HPCS) program, which had the goal of increasing [[supercomputer]] productivity by 2010. It is being developed as an [[Openopen-source software|open source]] project, under version 2 of the [[Apache license]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Chapel license |url=http://chapel.cray.com/license.html |work=Chapel.Cray.com |access-date=November 15, 2015}}</ref>

The Chapel compiler is written in [[C programming language)|C]] and [[C++]] ([[C++14]]). The backend (i.e. the optimizer) is [[LLVM]], written in C++. Python 3.7 or newer is required for some optional components such Chapel’s test system and c2chapel, a tool to generate C [[language binding|bindings]] for Chapel. By default Chapel compiles to binary expendables, but it can also compile to C code, and then LLVM is not used. Chapel code can be compiled to libraries to be callable from C, or Fortran or e.g. Python also supported.

Chapel includes preliminary work to target NVidia GPUs.

Chapel 2.0 is expected in the next six months.<ref>{{Cite web |title=CHAPEL 1.27.0/1.28.0 RELEASE NOTES: PROPOSED PRIORITIES FOR NEXT SIX MONTHS |url=https://chapel-lang.org/releaseNotes/1.27-1.28/06-priorities.pdf}}</ref> The current version 1.28 [[deprecation|deprecates]] a lot of functions, and also syntax, the [[input/output|I/O]]-operator <code><~></code>.

==Goals==

Chapel aims to improve the programmability of [[parallel computer]]s in general and the Cascade system in particular, by providing a higher level of expression than current programming languages do and by improving the separation between algorithmic expression and [[data structure]] implementation details.

The language designers aspire for Chapel to bridge the gap between current [[high-performance computing|HPC]] programming practitioners, who they describe as Fortran, C or C++ users writing [[procedural code]] using technologies like [[OpenMP]] and [[Messagemessage passing interface|MPI]] on one side, and newly graduating computer programmers who tend to prefer Java, Python or Matlab with only some of them having experience with C++ or C. Chapel should offer the productivity advances offered by the latter suite of languages while not alienating the users of the first.<ref name=Overview/>

==Features==

Chapel supports a [[Multithreadingmultithreading (computer architecture)|multithreaded]] parallel programming model at a high level by supporting abstractions for [[data parallelism]], [[task parallelism]], and [[nested parallelism]]. It enables optimizations for the [[locality of data]] and computation in the program via abstractions for data distribution and [[Data-driven programming|data-driven]] placement of subcomputations. It allows for [[code reuse]] and generality through [[object-oriented]] concepts and [[generic programming]] features. For instance, Chapel allows for the declaration of [[Locale (computer hardware)|locales]].<ref>

{{Cite conference

| author1 = Bongen Gu