From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 24132 invoked by alias); 5 Sep 2003 10:38:36 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gsl-discuss-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gsl-discuss-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 24123 invoked from network); 5 Sep 2003 10:38:35 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail.ukpost.com) (217.158.120.130) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 5 Sep 2003 10:38:35 -0000 Received: from mail.ukfsn.org (pop3.ukfsn.org [217.158.120.143]) by mail.ukpost.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9713B1F8003; Fri, 5 Sep 2003 11:38:24 +0100 (BST) Received: from localhost (dsl-80-46-232-29.access.uk.tiscali.com [80.46.232.29]) by mail.ukfsn.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 10842E6A7F; Fri, 5 Sep 2003 11:38:28 +0100 (BST) Received: by localhost with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 19vDz7-0000gv-00; Fri, 05 Sep 2003 11:38:33 +0100 From: Brian Gough MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <16216.26537.870237.953855@debian.local> Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2003 10:38:00 -0000 To: "Aleksandar B. Samardzic" Cc: gsl-discuss@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: libevaluator library and GSL In-Reply-To: <20030904174840.GA67119@daemon.local> References: <20030904174840.GA67119@daemon.local> X-SW-Source: 2003-q3/txt/msg00237.txt.bz2 Aleksandar B. Samardzic writes: > I've written a library > (http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/libevaluator/) that makes possible > to parse strings representing mathematical functions over single or > multiple variables and later to evaluate these functions for different > variable values (also to create representation of function derivative > over specified variable etc.). I've submitted this library for > evaluation regarding inclusion in GNU project and was told by my > evaluator that they would rather like to see my library as part of GSL > than to publish it as separate library. My library is written in C, but > offers also Fortran 77 and Gule interfaces (as well as Fortran 90 > interface). Hello, Thanks for your email. I've had a look at your package from CVS. Here are my comments, which you may pass on to the GNU evaluator. The question of having an expression parser in GSL came up once before. My opinion was that a library to do this could be useful in many C programs, including those which do not require anything else in GSL. Having a standalone evaluator package, with minimal dependencies, that is very easy for people to integrate into their program could be a good strategy for encouraging people to use the GPL for their software -- in the same way that the Readline library does. If the evaluator is part of GSL then it reduces the effectiveness of this approach, because GSL is so big (probably much larger than the application the evaluator would be used in) and could not be distributed with the program very easily. So, I would recommend having a single standalone library under the GPL, standardising on ANSI C expressions, and having no external dependencies (except for the standard c library), to maximise the potential userbase. best regards -- Brian Gough (GSL Maintainer)