SISAL
Streams and Iteration in a Single Assignment Language.
A general-purpose single assignment functional programming language with strict
semantics, automatic parallelisation and efficient arrays. Outputs a dataflow
graph in IF1 (Intermediary Form 1). Derived from VAL, adds recursion and finite
streams. Pascal-like syntax. Designed to be a common high-level language for
numerical programs on a variety of multiprocessors.
Implementations exist for Cray X-MP, Cray Y-MP, Cray-2, Sequent, Encore Alliant,
dataflow architectures, transputers and systolic arrays.
Defined in 1983 by James McGraw et al, Manchester University, Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, Colorado State University and DEC. Revised in 1985. First
compiled implementation in 1986. Performance superior to C and competitive with
Fortran, combined with efficient and automatic parallelisation.
Not to be confused with SASL.
E-mail: John Feo <feo@llnl.gov>, Rod Oldehoeft
<rro@cs.colostate.edu>.
David C. Cann has written an Optimising SISAL Compiler (OSC) which
attempts to make efficient use of parallel processors such as Crays.
Latest version: 12.0, SISAL 1.2.
["A Report on the SISAL Language Project", J.T. Feo et al, J Parallel and
Distrib Computing 10(4):349-366 (Dec 1990)].
(2000-07-07)
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