Background
C’s I/O functions were not written with parallel systems in mind
No clear consensus on how to carry out I/O on parallel systems
MPI forum punted: the MPI standard imposes no requirements on the I/O capabilities of an MPI implementation
Regardless, all implementations of MPI do provide some level of support for I/O
Purpose of this chapter is to provide tools for program development, and hence, will favor simplicity and reliability over performance