HYPRE_Initialize() after errors?

[jczhang07]

Hello, I met an error (call HYPRE_SetMemoryLocation() without calling HYPRE_Initialize() before) and then I found the code at https://github.com/hypre-space/hypre/blob/master/src/utilities/general.c#L18-L28,

It is weird to see you trigger an error complaining HYPRE_Initialize() is not called in hypre_error_w_msg(), then still do HYPRE_Initialize() yourself.

Then what is the purpose of this error/complaint :)?.

[victorapm]

Hi Junchao,

In general, this is not a fatal error but a safeguard mechanism. The error message serves as a debugging aid, reminding users to explicitly call HYPRE_Initialize() before any other HYPRE function. However, to ensure robustness, the library automatically calls HYPRE_Initialize() as a fallback to try to recover and maintain functionality.

While this recovery mechanism tries to avoid fatal errors, it's not always successful and our recommended approach is to always call HYPRE_Initialize() explicitly before any other hypre call to ensure predictable behavior and eliminate unnecessary warnings.

[jczhang07]

The problem is in that case,HYPRE_SetMemoryLocation() returns a non-zero error code (even not fatal as you said), causing petsc to error out.

[victorapm]

Could you move your call to HYPRE_SetMemoryLocation after the initialize call?

[jczhang07]

Yes, we can. It is not a problem for petsc. I just feel in hypre if you think it is a warning, you should not set the error code.

[victorapm]

Hi Junchao, currently, hypre doesn’t distinguish between warnings and errors, leaving it to applications to handle our error codes. However, that’s a fair point, and I’ll bring it up with the team to consider improving this in the future. Also feel free to propose any pull requests if you are interested!