Acess methods for struct initialisation - julia

Question

I would like to do something like this:
Base.#kwdef mutable struct Setup
# physics
lx = 20.0
dc = 1.0
n = 4
# inital condition
ic(x) = exp(-(x-lx/4)^2)
# numerics
nx = 200
nvis = 50
# derived numerics
dx = lx/nx
dt = dx^2/dc/10
nt = nx^2 ÷ 5
# arrays
xc = LinRange(dx/2,lx-dx/2,nx)
C0 = ic.(xc)
C = copy(C)
q = zeros(nx-1)
# collections for easy use
dgl_params=[dc,n]
end
The problem here is that it says ic was undefined. Makes sense, because ic is not in the global scope.
Then I tried writing an outside constructor instead (I am not writing an inside constructor as that would overwrite the default constructor).
Base.#kwdef mutable struct Setup
# physics
lx = 20.0
dc = 1.0
n = 4
# inital condition
ic(x) = exp(-(x-lx/4)^2)
# numerics
nx = 200
nvis = 50
# derived numerics
dx = lx/nx
dt = dx^2/dc/10
nt = nx^2 ÷ 5
# arrays
xc = LinRange(dx/2,lx-dx/2,nx)
# C0 = ic.(xc)
C0
C = copy(C)
q = zeros(nx-1)
# collections for easy use
dgl_params=[dc,n]
end
function Setup()
Setup(Setup.ic(Setup.xc))
end
Setup()
But now it says DataType has no field ic which of course makes sense, I want the ic of the object itself. However there appears to be no selfor this keyword in julia.
Strangely enough the above seems to work fine with dx or dt which are also depending on other variables

Answer 1

Normally the design is to have multiple dispatch and functions outside of the object
When creating structs always provide the datatype of elements
For this large structs usually you will find out that using Parameters package will be more convenient when later debugging
The easiest way to circumvent the limitation is to have a lambda function in a field such as (this is however not the recommended Julia style):
#with_kw mutable struct Setup
lx::Float64 = 20.0
ic::Function = x -> lx * x
end
This can be now used as:
julia> s = Setup(lx=30)
Setup
lx: Float64 30.0
ic: #10 (function of type var"#10#14"{Int64})
julia> s.ic(10)
300

Answer 2

Actually, it is not in the design to have what in Java or C++ you would call "member functions". Part of this is Julia's will to benefit from the multiple dispatch programming paradigm. In Julia, mutables are pointers, so you pass them directly to a function, e.g.
function ic(setup::Setup, x)
return exp(-(x-setup.lx/4)^2)
end
That said, there is still a way to have more Java-esque classes, though not super recommended. Check this thread and, particularly, the answered marked as solution, given by one of Julia's authors themself.

Answer 3

Okay, I found the solution.
This does not work, because there are no methods in julia:
Base.#kwdef mutable struct S
n = 5
m
f(x) = x + 100
A = f.(randn(n,m))
end
s = S(m=5) # ERROR: UndefVarError: f not defined
s.A
s.f(5)
But this does work, because here f is a variable and not a function
Base.#kwdef mutable struct S
n = 5
m
f= x-> x + 100
A = f.(randn(n,m))
end
s = S(m=5)
s.A
s.f(5)