icetCreateContext(3)						  IceT Reference					      icetCreateContext(3)

NAME

       icetCreateContext -- creates a new context.

Synopsis
       #include <IceT.h>

       IceTContext icetCreateContext(	IceTCommunicator   comm  );

Description
       The  icetCreateContext  function creates a new .igcontext!IceT IceT context, makes it current, and returns a handle to the new context. The
       handle returned is of type IceTContext.	This is an opaque type that should not be handled directly, but rather simply passed to other IceT
       functions.

       Like  OpenGL  ,the  IceT  engine  behaves like a large state machine. The parameters for engine operation is held in the current state. The
       entire state is encapsulated in a context. Each new context contains its own state.

       It is therefore possible to change the entire current state of IceT by simply switching contexts. Switching contexts is	much  faster,  and
       often more convenient, than trying to change many state parameters.

Errors
       None.

Warnings
       None.

Bugs
       It  may	be  tempting to use contexts to run different IceT operations on separate program threads. Although certainly possible, great care
       must be taken. First of all, all threads will share the same context. Second of all, IceT is not thread safe. Therefore,  a  multi-threaded
       program	would  have to run all IceT commands in `critical sections' to ensure that the correct context is being used, and the methods exe-
       cute safely in general.

Notes
       icetCreateContext duplicates the communicator comm.  Thus, to avoid deadlocks on certain implementations (such as MPI), the user level pro-
       gram should call icetCreateContext on all processes with the same comm object at about the same time.

Copyright
       Copyright (C)2003 Sandia Corporation

       Under the terms of Contract DE-AC04-94AL85000 with Sandia Corporation, the U.S. Government retains certain rights in this software.

       This source code is released under the New BSD License.

See Also
       icetDestroyContext(3), icetGetContext(3), icetSetContext(3), icetCopyState(3), icetGet(3)

IceT Reference							  August  9, 2010					      icetCreateContext(3)