Nonblocking communication operations use opaque request objects to identify communication operations and match the operation that initiates the communication with the operation that terminates it. These are system objects that are accessed via a handle. A request object identifies various properties of a communication operation, such as the send mode, the communication buffer that is associated with it, its context, the tag and destination arguments to be used for a send, or the tag and source arguments to be used for a receive. In addition, this object stores information about the status of the pending communication operation.