Communication of Complex Data Structures

Communicating complex data structures, that is those containing pointers, across machines is a common problem in distributed and parallel computing; particularly with the current move towards object-oriented programming. Some techniques utilise dedicated hardware and system software to efficiently achieve this. This paper presents a study of several software techniques for the communication of complex data structures. A selection of packing/unpacking techniques are tried and compared; in addition a mini-heap ADT, requiring no packing or unpacking, is studied. 1 Introduction Parallel computing is currently a hot topic in computing. The basic driving force of parallel computing is the desire and prospect for increased performance over conventional sequential computing. Of particular interest to us is network based parallel computing and the idea of creating a virtual supercomputer from networks of idle workstations [3]. Over the past decade the development of parallel computing has shif..