Re: GSL 2.0 roadmap

["Robert G. Brown" <rgb@phy.duke.edu>]

On Thu, 27 Aug 2009, Jordi Burguet Castell wrote:

> You may want to check the extensions "tensor" and "marray" that I also
> developed a while ago:
> http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/#extensions
>
> I don't know how much overlap they have with your ideas, the main
> thing for them is to manipulate tensors of arbitrary rank and do the
> common operations on them.

I'll try to look when I get a chance.  Unfortunately none of my current
projects are using tensors much these days, so it may take me some time
to get to it.  Basically my approach was to build a fairly
systematically creating ***...whatever pointers with arbitrary index
limits, creating a linear data object, and suitably packing the offsets
into the toplevel, castable tensor pointer.  The overall tensor object
was a struct with the requisite pieces and e.g. limit information
available inside the struct, with a create/destroy function that
allocated and packed and unpacked and freed respectively, but the
approach allowed one to directly access the tensor in array notation,
whatever[i][j][k]...  Not terribly subtle, in other words.  Your
extension is probably better thought out.

> This may also interest you, quoting from the web: "If you want to add
> a feature to GSL we recommend that you make it an extension first. We
> will list it here so that people can try it out. Extensions can be
> incorporated after they have been tested in real use (see "How to
> help" for more information)."  So maybe you can consider making your
> code an extension if it is not already?

Yes, I recall that, although it was a pretty long time ago when I wrote
these particular extensions and I'm not sure that this was yet standard
policy.  Maybe it was, I don't know; I do remember asking if anybody was
interested in them at that time and nobody suggested making them a
formal extension instead.  My dieharder program is listed in this sort
of way (including, I imagine, the extra GSL-compatible rngs and an
"add-rng" function that basically makes the GSL list extensible).  I
could probably turn at least that part into a formal extension pretty
easily, and it is arguably the most useful piece of what I've got.

Thanks!

    rgb

>
> Cheers,
> Jordi
>

Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb@phy.duke.edu