An important aspect of any parallel programming tool is its ability to provide useful information that can help the user optimize a program for efficient parallel execution or debug a parallel program. In many parallel programming tools, data dependence information is a fundamental requirement for the implementation of the various utilities provided by the tool. Experience has shown that while data dependence is a powerful concept, it sometimes causes several complexities both in internal analysis and in programmer-tool interaction. These problems can be overcome by summarizing the effect of data dependences in parts of the program. This paper presents a mechanism for summarizing data accesses in numerical scientific programs that is easy to implement and manipulate in a programming tool. Data dependence is viewed as an intersection between data access summaries, which allows data dependence and data access to be treated in a unified manner. © 1990.
