I have a Julia function in a file. Let's say it is the below. Now I want to pass arguments into this function. I tried doing
julia filename.jl randmatstat(5)
but this gives an error that '(' token is unexpected. Not sure what the solution would be. I am also a little torn on if there is a main function / how to write a full solution using Julia. For example what is the starting / entry point of a Julia Program?
function randmatstat(t)
n = 5
v = zeros(t)
w = zeros(t)
for i = 1:t
a = randn(n,n)
b = randn(n,n)
c = randn(n,n)
d = randn(n,n)
P = [a b c d]
Q = [a b; c d]
v[i] = trace((P.'*P)^4)
w[i] = trace((Q.'*Q)^4)
end
std(v)/mean(v), std(w)/mean(w)
end
Julia doesn't have an "entry point" as such.
When you call julia myscript.jl from the terminal, you're essentially asking julia to execute the script and exit. As such, it needs to be a script. If all you have in your script is a function definition, then it won't do much unless you later call that function from your script.
As for arguments, if you call julia myscript.jl 1 2 3 4, all the remaining arguments (i.e. in this case, 1, 2, 3 and 4) become an array of strings with the special name ARGS. You can use this special variable to access the input arguments.
e.g. if you have a julia script which simply says:
# in julia mytest.jl
show(ARGS)
Then calling this from the linux terminal will give this result:
<bashprompt> $ julia mytest.jl 1 two "three and four"
UTF8String["1","two","three and four"]
EDIT: So, from what I understand from your program, you probably want to do something like this (note: in julia, the function needs to be defined before it's called).
# in file myscript.jl
function randmatstat(t)
n = 5
v = zeros(t)
w = zeros(t)
for i = 1:t
a = randn(n,n)
b = randn(n,n)
c = randn(n,n)
d = randn(n,n)
P = [a b c d]
Q = [a b; c d]
v[i] = trace((P.'*P)^4)
w[i] = trace((Q.'*Q)^4)
end
std(v)/mean(v), std(w)/mean(w)
end
t = parse(Int64, ARGS[1])
(a,b) = randmatstat(t)
print("a is $a, and b is $b\n")
And then call this from your linux terminal like so:
julia myscript.jl 5
You can try running like so:
julia -L filename.jl -E 'randmatstat(5)'
Add the following to your Julia file:
### original file
function randmatstat...
...
end
### new stuff
if length(ARGS)>0
ret = eval(parse(join(ARGS," ")))
end
println(ret)
Now, you can run:
julia filename.jl "randmatstat(5)"
As attempted originally. Note the additional quotes added to make sure the parenthesis don't mess up the command.
Explanation: The ARGS variable is defined by Julia to hold the parameters to the command running the file. Since Julia is an interpreter, we can join these parameters to a string, parse it as Julia code, run it and print the result (the code corresponds to this description).
Related
Suppose I have this function, implemented without StaticArrays
function example_svector_bad(G)
vector_list = [ randn(G) for q in 1:1000]
for i in size(vector_list)
for g in 1:G
vector_list[i][g] = vector_list[i][g] * g
end
end
return vector_list
end
I'm hoping to implement it using StaticArrays for speed gains. However, I don't know how to do it without losing the flexibility of specifying G. For example, I could do
function example_svector()
vector_list = [#SVector randn(3) for q in 1:1000]
for i in size(vector_list)
vector_list[i] = SVector(vector_list[i][1] * 1, vector_list[i][1] * 2,
vector_list[i][1] * 3)
end
return vector_list
end
if I knew that G = 3 and I had to write out SVector(vector_list[i][1] * 1, vector_list[i][1] * 2, vector_list[i][1] * 3).
Is there a way to implement this for any arbitrary number of G?
The size of a static vector or array must be known at the compile time.
At the compile time only types are known (rather than values).
Hence your function could look like this:
function myRandVec(::Val{G}) where G
SVector{G}(rand(G))
end
Note that G is passed as type rather than as value and hence can be used to create a static vector.
This function could be used as:
julia> myRandVec(Val{2}())
2-element SVector{2, Float64} with indices SOneTo(2):
0.7618992223709563
0.5979657793050613
Firstly, there is a mistake in how you are indexing vector_list, where you do
for i in size(vector_list)
Let's see what that does:
julia> x = 1:10;
julia> size(x)
(10,)
The size of x is its length in each dimension, for a vector that is just (10,) since it has only one dimension. Let's try iterating:
julia> for i in size(x)
println(i)
end
10
It just prints out the number 10.
You probably meant
for i in 1:length(vector_list)
but it's better to write
for i in eachindex(vector_list)
since it is more general and safer.
As for your actual question, you can use StaticArrays.SOneTo which provides a static version of [1,2,3]:
function example_svector()
vector_list = [#SVector randn(3) for q in 1:1000]
N = length(eltype(vector_list))
c = SOneTo(N)
for i in eachindex(vector_list)
vector_list[i] = vector_list[i] .* c
end
return vector_list
end
I have a model with many parameters where I am passing them as a named tuple. Is there a way to promote the values into the variable scope in my function?
parameters = (
τ₁ = 0.035,
β₁ = 0.00509,
θ = 1,
τ₂ = 0.01,
β₂ = 0.02685,
...
)
And then used like so currently:
function model(init,params) # params would be the parameters above
foo = params.β₁ ^ params.θ
end
Is there a way (marco?) to get the parameters into my variable scope directly so that I can do this:
function model(init,params) # params would be the parameters above
#promote params # hypothetical macro to bring each named tuple field into scope
foo = β₁ ^ θ
end
The latter looks a lot nicer with some math-heavy code.
You can use #unpack from the UnPack.jl package1:
julia> nt = (a = 1, b = 2, c = 3);
julia> #unpack a, c = nt; # selectively unpack a and c
julia> a
1
julia> c
3
1 This was formerly part of the Parameters.jl package, which still exports #unpack and has other similar functionality you might find useful.
Edit: As noted in the comments, writing a general macro #unpack x is not possible since the fieldnames are runtime information. You could however define a macro specific to your own type/namedtuple that unpacks
julia> macro myunpack(x)
return esc(quote
a = $(x).a
b = $(x).b
c = $(x).c
nothing
end)
end;
julia> nt = (a = 1, b = 2, c = 3);
julia> #myunpack nt
julia> a, b, c
(1, 2, 3)
However, I think it is more clear to use the #unpack since this version "hides" assignments and it is not clear where the variables a, b and c comes from when reading the code.
In Julia I've defined a type and I need to write some functions that work with the fields of that type. Some of the functions contain complicated formulas and it gets messy to use the field access dot notation all over the place. So I end up putting the field values into local variables to improve readability. It works fine, but is there some clever way to avoid having to type out all the a=foo.a lines or to have Julia parse a as foo.a etc?
struct Foo
a::Real
b::Real
c::Real
end
# this gets hard to read
function bar(foo::Foo)
foo.a + foo.b + foo.c + foo.a*foo.b - foo.b*foo.c
end
# this is better
function bar(foo::Foo)
a = foo.a
b = foo.b
c = foo.c
a + b + c + a*b - b*c
end
# this would be great
function bar(foo::Foo)
something clever
a + b + c + a*b - b*c
end
Because Julia generally encourages the use of generalized interfaces to interact with fields rather than accessing the fields directly, a fairly natural way of accomplishing this would be unpacking via iteration. In Julia, objects can be "unpacked" into multiple variables by iteration:
julia> x, y = [1, 2, 3]
3-element Array{Int64,1}:
1
2
3
julia> x
1
julia> y
2
We can implement such an iteration protocol for a custom object, like Foo. In v0.7, this would look like:
Base.iterate(foo::Foo, state = 1) = state > 3 ? nothing : (getfield(foo, state), state + 1)
Note that 3 is hardcoded (based on the number of fields in Foo) and could be replaced with fieldcount(Foo). Now, you can simply "unpack" an instance of Foo as follows:
julia> a, b, c = Foo("one", 2.0, 3)
Foo("one", 2.0, 3)
julia> a
"one"
julia> b
2.0
julia> c
3
This could be the "something clever" at the beginning of your function. Additionally, as of v0.7, you can unpack the fields in the function argument itself:
function bar((a, b, c)::Foo)
a + b + c + a*b - b*c
end
Although this does require that you mention the field names again, it comes with two potential advantages:
In the case that your struct is refactored and the fields are renamed, all code accessing the fields will remain intact (as long as the field order doesn't change or the iterate implementation is changed to reflect the new object internals).
Longer field names can be abbreviated. (i.e. rather than using the full apples field name, you can opt to use a.)
If it's important that the field names not be repeated, you could define a macro to generate the required variables (a = foo.a; b = foo.b; c = foo.c); however, this would likely be more confusing for the readers of your code and lack the advantages listed above.
As of Julia 1.6, the macros in this package look relevant: https://github.com/mauro3/UnPack.jl.
The syntax would look like:
function bar(foo::Foo)
# something clever!
#unpack a, b, c = f
a + b + c + a*b - b*c
end
In Julia 1.7, it looks like this feature will be added with the syntax
function bar(foo::Foo)
# something clever!
(; a, b, c) = f
a + b + c + a*b - b*c
end
Here is the merged pull request: https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/pull/39285
How do I evaluate the function in only one of its variables, that is, I hope to obtain another function after evaluating the function. I have the following piece of code.
deff ('[F] = fun (x, y)', 'F = x ^ 2-3 * y ^ 2 + x * y ^ 3');
fun (4, y)
I hope to get 16-3y ^ 2 + 4y ^ 3
If what you want to do is to write x = f(4,y), and later just do x(2) to get -36, that is called partial application:
Intuitively, partial function application says "if you fix the first arguments of the function, you get a function of the remaining arguments".
This is a very useful feature, and very common Functional Programming Languages, such as Haskell, but even JS and Python now are able to do it. It is also possible to do this in MATLAB and GNU/Octave using anonymous functions (see this answer). In Scilab, however, this feature is not available.
Workround
Nonetheless, Scilab itself uses a workarounds to carry a function with its arguments without fully evaluating. You see this being used in ode(), fsolve(), optim(), and others:
Create a list containing the function and the arguments to partial evaluation: list(f,arg1,arg2,...,argn)
Use another function to evaluate such list and the last argument: evalPartList(list(...),last_arg)
The implementation of evalPartList() can be something like this:
function y = evalPartList(fList,last_arg)
//fList: list in which the first element is a function
//last_arg: last argument to be applied to the function
func = fList(1); //extract function from the list
y = func(fList(2:$),last_arg); //each element of the list, from second
//to last, becomes an argument
endfunction
You can test it on Scilab's console:
--> deff ('[F] = fun (x, y)', 'F = x ^ 2-3 * y ^ 2 + x * y ^ 3');
--> x = list(fun,4)
x =
x(1)
[F]= x(1)(x,y)
x(2)
4.
--> evalPartList(x,2)
ans =
36.
This is a very simple implementation for evalPartList(), and you have to be careful not to exceed or be short on the number of arguments.
In the way you're asking, you can't.
What you're looking is called symbolic (or formal) computational mathematics, because you don't pass actual numerical values to functions.
Scilab is numerical software so it can't do such thing. But there is a toolbox scimax (installation guide) that rely on a the free formal software wxmaxima.
BUT
An ugly, stupid but still sort of working solution is to takes advantages of strings :
function F = fun (x, y) // Here we define a function that may return a constant or string depending on the input
fmt = '%10.3E'
if (type(x)==type('')) & (type(y)==type(0)) // x is string is
ys = msprintf(fmt,y)
F = x+'^2 - 3*'+ys+'^2 + '+x+'*'+ys+'^3'
end
if (type(y)==type('')) & (type(x)==type(0)) // y is string so is F
xs = msprintf(fmt,x)
F = xs+'^2 - 3*'+y+'^2 + '+xs+'*'+y+'^3'
end
if (type(y)==type('')) & (type(x)==type('')) // x&y are strings so is F
F = x+'^2 - 3*'+y+'^2 + '+x+'*'+y+'^3'
end
if (type(y)==type(0)) & (type(x)==type(0)) // x&y are constant so is F
F = x^2 - 3*y^2 + x*y^3
end
endfunction
// Then we can use this 'symbolic' function
deff('F2 = fun2(y)',' F2 = '+fun(4,'y'))
F2=fun2(2) // does compute fun(4,2)
disp(F2)
I'm writing a genetic program in order to test the fitness of randomly generated expressions. Shown here is the function to generate the expression as well a the main function. DIV and GT are defined elsewhere in the code:
function create_single_full_tree(depth, fs, ts)
"""
Creates a single AST with full depth
Inputs
depth Current depth of tree. Initially called from main() with max depth
fs Function Set - Array of allowed functions
ts Terminal Set - Array of allowed terminal values
Output
Full AST of typeof()==Expr
"""
# If we are at the bottom
if depth == 1
# End of tree, return function with two terminal nodes
return Expr(:call, fs[rand(1:length(fs))], ts[rand(1:length(ts))], ts[rand(1:length(ts))])
else
# Not end of expression, recurively go back through and create functions for each new node
return Expr(:call, fs[rand(1:length(fs))], create_single_full_tree(depth-1, fs, ts), create_single_full_tree(depth-1, fs, ts))
end
end
function main()
"""
Main function
"""
# Define functional and terminal sets
fs = [:+, :-, :DIV, :GT]
ts = [:x, :v, -1]
# Create the tree
ast = create_single_full_tree(4, fs, ts)
#println(typeof(ast))
#println(ast)
#println(dump(ast))
x = 1
v = 1
eval(ast) # Error out unless x and v are globals
end
main()
I am generating a random expression based on certain allowed functions and variables. As seen in the code, the expression can only have symbols x and v, as well as the value -1. I will need to test the expression with a variety of x and v values; here I am just using x=1 and v=1 to test the code.
The expression is being returned correctly, however, eval() can only be used with global variables, so it will error out when run unless I declare x and v to be global (ERROR: LoadError: UndefVarError: x not defined). I would like to avoid globals if possible. Is there a better way to generate and evaluate these generated expressions with locally defined variables?
Here is an example for generating an (anonymous) function. The result of eval can be called as a function and your variable can be passed as parameters:
myfun = eval(Expr(:->,:x, Expr(:block, Expr(:call,:*,3,:x) )))
myfun(14)
# returns 42
The dump function is very useful to inspect the expression that the parsers has created. For two input arguments you would use a tuple for example as args[1]:
julia> dump(parse("(x,y) -> 3x + y"))
Expr
head: Symbol ->
args: Array{Any}((2,))
1: Expr
head: Symbol tuple
args: Array{Any}((2,))
1: Symbol x
2: Symbol y
typ: Any
2: Expr
[...]
Does this help?
In the Metaprogramming part of the Julia documentation, there is a sentence under the eval() and effects section which says
Every module has its own eval() function that evaluates expressions in its global scope.
Similarly, the REPL help ?eval will give you, on Julia 0.6.2, the following help:
Evaluate an expression in the given module and return the result. Every Module (except those defined with baremodule) has its own 1-argument definition of eval, which evaluates expressions in that module.
I assume, you are working in the Main module in your example. That's why you need to have the globals defined there. For your problem, you can use macros and interpolate the values of x and y directly inside the macro.
A minimal working example would be:
macro eval_line(a, b, x)
isa(a, Real) || (warn("$a is not a real number."); return :(throw(DomainError())))
isa(b, Real) || (warn("$b is not a real number."); return :(throw(DomainError())))
return :($a * $x + $b) # interpolate the variables
end
Here, #eval_line macro does the following:
Main> #macroexpand #eval_line(5, 6, 2)
:(5 * 2 + 6)
As you can see, the values of macro's arguments are interpolated inside the macro and the expression is given to the user accordingly. When the user does not behave,
Main> #macroexpand #eval_line([1,2,3], 7, 8)
WARNING: [1, 2, 3] is not a real number.
:((Main.throw)((Main.DomainError)()))
a user-friendly warning message is provided to the user at parse-time, and a DomainError is thrown at run-time.
Of course, you can do these things within your functions, again by interpolating the variables --- you do not need to use macros. However, what you would like to achieve in the end is to combine eval with the output of a function that returns Expr. This is what the macro functionality is for. Finally, you would simply call your macros with an # sign preceding the macro name:
Main> #eval_line(5, 6, 2)
16
Main> #eval_line([1,2,3], 7, 8)
WARNING: [1, 2, 3] is not a real number.
ERROR: DomainError:
Stacktrace:
[1] eval(::Module, ::Any) at ./boot.jl:235
EDIT 1. You can take this one step further, and create functions accordingly:
macro define_lines(linedefs)
for (name, a, b) in eval(linedefs)
ex = quote
function $(Symbol(name))(x) # interpolate name
return $a * x + $b # interpolate a and b here
end
end
eval(ex) # evaluate the function definition expression in the module
end
end
Then, you can call this macro to create different line definitions in the form of functions to be called later on:
#define_lines([
("identity_line", 1, 0);
("null_line", 0, 0);
("unit_shift", 0, 1)
])
identity_line(5) # returns 5
null_line(5) # returns 0
unit_shift(5) # returns 1
EDIT 2. You can, I guess, achieve what you would like to achieve by using a macro similar to that below:
macro random_oper(depth, fs, ts)
operations = eval(fs)
oper = operations[rand(1:length(operations))]
terminals = eval(ts)
ts = terminals[rand(1:length(terminals), 2)]
ex = :($oper($ts...))
for d in 2:depth
oper = operations[rand(1:length(operations))]
t = terminals[rand(1:length(terminals))]
ex = :($oper($ex, $t))
end
return ex
end
which will give the following, for instance:
Main> #macroexpand #random_oper(1, [+, -, /], [1,2,3])
:((-)([3, 3]...))
Main> #macroexpand #random_oper(2, [+, -, /], [1,2,3])
:((+)((-)([2, 3]...), 3))
Thanks Arda for the thorough response! This helped, but part of me thinks there may be a better way to do this as it seems too roundabout. Since I am writing a genetic program, I will need to create 500 of these ASTs, all with random functions and terminals from a set of allowed functions and terminals (fs and ts in the code). I will also need to test each function with 20 different values of x and v.
In order to accomplish this with the information you have given, I have come up with the following macro:
macro create_function(defs)
for name in eval(defs)
ex = quote
function $(Symbol(name))(x,v)
fs = [:+, :-, :DIV, :GT]
ts = [x,v,-1]
return create_single_full_tree(4, fs, ts)
end
end
eval(ex)
end
end
I can then supply a list of 500 random function names in my main() function, such as ["func1, func2, func3,.....". Which I can eval with any x and v values in my main function. This has solved my issue, however, this seems to be a very roundabout way of doing this, and may make it difficult to evolve each AST with each iteration.