The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted as well.
Hi all!
Here is my first try in interfacing Mathematica to Perl. It is still
very basic now. But if someone else is thinking about that, he/she
will know no that he/she is not alone ;-)
You can get the packet soon from your nearest CPAN site as:
Math-Mathematica-1.0.4.tar.gz
Appended the (even more basic) documentation. If you need more
details, look in the Mathematica.xs file. If you want more functions
supported try the mh2xs on your mathlink.h and append the stuff to the
xs file.
By the way 'Math::Mathematica' is really long. Any suggestions for an
alternate name?
Ulrich
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MATHEMATICA(1) MATHEMATICA(1)
NAME
Math::Mathematica - Communicate to Mathematica via
MathLink
SYNOPSIS
use Math::Mathematica;
$link = new Math::Mathematica( MathLink args )
DESCRIPTION
This is a very basic interface to the MathLink library of
Mathematica. Mathematica is registered trademark of
Wolfram Research, Inc. I use version 2.2. There are tree
groups of functions.
As-Is functions
Some functions have the same interface as in MathLink
itself. For example
int MLPutSymbol(MLINK, char*);
Can be called from Perl like:
Math::Mathematica::PutSymbol($link,"FooBar");
I recommend to use the OO-Syntax:
$link->PutSymbol("FooBar");
More perlish functions
There are a couple of functions in MathLink which return a
error code and deliver results via reference parameters.
int MLGetSymbol(MLINK, char**);
the Perl versions of these functions return the result as
result of the function. If the return code of the MathLink
function indicates an error, undef is returned instead.
You can use defined to disambiguate undef and 0 for
functions returning numeric values.
if (defined($result = $link->GetSymbol)) {
....
}
Convenience functions
In Mathematica.pm there are few functions to support
OO-style syntax.
new Is an alias for open. It takes a list of named
arguments as the math of Mathematica program does. To
use launch mode use e.g.:
$link = new Math::Mathematica('-linkname', "math -mathlink",
'-linkmode', 'launch');
If you want to connect over TCP enter the following
line in a shell to start the server
math -linkmode listen -linkprotocol TCP -linkname
3000 -mathlink
and use this in your script to connect:
$link = new Math::Mathematica('-linkname', '3000',
'-linkmode', 'Connect',
'-linkhost', 'schroeder',
'-linkprotocol', 'TCP',
);
DESTROY
Is an alias For Close. So you do not need to close a
connection - Perl will do it for you.
Call Takes a list of arguments. The first is assumed to be
a Mathematica function name, the rest the arguments
to pass to Mathematica. Arguments may be numbers,
strings or array references. The latter is assumed to
point to a argument list for another function call.
Perhaps the following example helps to clarify this:
$e = $link->Call('N', ['Exp',1], 20);
Since Call is written in Perl, there is no way to
distinguish between "1234" and 1234. So the functions
guesses that you meant String if the argument
contained a letter. Perhaps someone will write Call
as xsub?
Result
Looks for a result from Mathematica and returns it.
Caution this function just handles the most frequent
cases. It dies if it runs in an unknown case ;-(
$link->PutSymbol('$Version');
$link->EndPacket();
$version = $link->Result();
BUGS
Doubless many.
The tests complain about acessing uninitialized values
when testing the aruments for references:
if (ref($_) eq 'ARRAY') ...
This seems to be a bug of my perl version rather than one
of PutCall.
Contribute
That is it for now. Let me know if somebody uses this (1)
and is willing to test (2) or to contribute (3). The
latter is preferred ;-)
AUTHOR
Ulrich Pfeifer <pfeifer@ls6.informatik.uni-dortmund.de>
3
that has been posted as well.
Hi all!
Here is my first try in interfacing Mathematica to Perl. It is still
very basic now. But if someone else is thinking about that, he/she
will know no that he/she is not alone ;-)
You can get the packet soon from your nearest CPAN site as:
Math-Mathematica-1.0.4.tar.gz
Appended the (even more basic) documentation. If you need more
details, look in the Mathematica.xs file. If you want more functions
supported try the mh2xs on your mathlink.h and append the stuff to the
xs file.
By the way 'Math::Mathematica' is really long. Any suggestions for an
alternate name?
Ulrich
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MATHEMATICA(1) MATHEMATICA(1)
NAME
Math::Mathematica - Communicate to Mathematica via
MathLink
SYNOPSIS
use Math::Mathematica;
$link = new Math::Mathematica( MathLink args )
DESCRIPTION
This is a very basic interface to the MathLink library of
Mathematica. Mathematica is registered trademark of
Wolfram Research, Inc. I use version 2.2. There are tree
groups of functions.
As-Is functions
Some functions have the same interface as in MathLink
itself. For example
int MLPutSymbol(MLINK, char*);
Can be called from Perl like:
Math::Mathematica::PutSymbol($link,"FooBar");
I recommend to use the OO-Syntax:
$link->PutSymbol("FooBar");
More perlish functions
There are a couple of functions in MathLink which return a
error code and deliver results via reference parameters.
int MLGetSymbol(MLINK, char**);
the Perl versions of these functions return the result as
result of the function. If the return code of the MathLink
function indicates an error, undef is returned instead.
You can use defined to disambiguate undef and 0 for
functions returning numeric values.
if (defined($result = $link->GetSymbol)) {
....
}
Convenience functions
In Mathematica.pm there are few functions to support
OO-style syntax.
new Is an alias for open. It takes a list of named
arguments as the math of Mathematica program does. To
use launch mode use e.g.:
$link = new Math::Mathematica('-linkname', "math -mathlink",
'-linkmode', 'launch');
If you want to connect over TCP enter the following
line in a shell to start the server
math -linkmode listen -linkprotocol TCP -linkname
3000 -mathlink
and use this in your script to connect:
$link = new Math::Mathematica('-linkname', '3000',
'-linkmode', 'Connect',
'-linkhost', 'schroeder',
'-linkprotocol', 'TCP',
);
DESTROY
Is an alias For Close. So you do not need to close a
connection - Perl will do it for you.
Call Takes a list of arguments. The first is assumed to be
a Mathematica function name, the rest the arguments
to pass to Mathematica. Arguments may be numbers,
strings or array references. The latter is assumed to
point to a argument list for another function call.
Perhaps the following example helps to clarify this:
$e = $link->Call('N', ['Exp',1], 20);
Since Call is written in Perl, there is no way to
distinguish between "1234" and 1234. So the functions
guesses that you meant String if the argument
contained a letter. Perhaps someone will write Call
as xsub?
Result
Looks for a result from Mathematica and returns it.
Caution this function just handles the most frequent
cases. It dies if it runs in an unknown case ;-(
$link->PutSymbol('$Version');
$link->EndPacket();
$version = $link->Result();
BUGS
Doubless many.
The tests complain about acessing uninitialized values
when testing the aruments for references:
if (ref($_) eq 'ARRAY') ...
This seems to be a bug of my perl version rather than one
of PutCall.
Contribute
That is it for now. Let me know if somebody uses this (1)
and is willing to test (2) or to contribute (3). The
latter is preferred ;-)
AUTHOR
Ulrich Pfeifer <pfeifer@ls6.informatik.uni-dortmund.de>
3