How does one clear or remove a global in julia? - global-variables

Is there any syntax that does something similar to MATLAB's "clear" i.e. if I have a global variable "a". How do I get rid of it? How do I do the analog of
clear a

See the latest answer to this question here: https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/faq/#How-do-I-delete-an-object-in-memory%3F
Retrieved from the docs:
Julia does not have an analog of MATLAB’s clear function; once a name
is defined in a Julia session (technically, in module Main), it is
always present.
If memory usage is your concern, you can always replace objects with
ones that consume less memory. For example, if A is a gigabyte-sized
array that you no longer need, you can free the memory with A = 0. The
memory will be released the next time the garbage collector runs; you
can force this to happen with gc().

Julia 0.6 < 1.0
In Julia 0.6. You can remove the variable and free up it's memory by calling clear!().
You have to call clear! on the symbolic name of the variable:
julia> x = 5
5
julia> sizeof(x)
8
julia> clear!(:x)
julia> sizeof(x)
0
As DFN pointed out, this won't actually remove the objects but set them to nothing. This is useful for freeing up memory from you workspace as you can "delete" the memory footprint for non-constant objects.
Julia 1.0+
This does not work in Julia 1.0+. If you are using 1.0+ you will have to set the object to Nothing and let the garbage collector take it from there.
This is from the official docs here.

As of 0.3.9, it's possible to clear all global variables (get a new workspace), through the workspace() function.
It's also possible to get the variables from the last workspace by using LastMain (e.g. LastMain.foobar).
So currently the only way of doing what you desire, is to clear everything and transfer everything but the variable you want to your new workspace.

Currently, one doesn't. There is, however, an issue to track that feature:
https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/2385

For Julia-0.6.4,
clear!(:x)
is working as mentioned by #niczky AND it's working in iJulia.
However, for Julia-1.0.0,
clear!(:x)
... throws up the following:
ERROR: UndefVarError: clear! not defined
Stacktrace:
[1] top-level scope at none:0
So, it's broken for Julia-1.0.0.

Absolutely clear!(:x) does not work with julia 0.6.0 in notebook(IJulia)! You may choose to use x = 0 as an alternative.

Related

LLVM converting a Constant to a Value

I am using custom LLVM pass where if I encounter a store to
where the compiler converts the value to a Constant; e.g. there is an explicit store:
X[gidx] = 10;
Then LLVM will generate this error:
aoc: ../../../Instructions.cpp:1056: void llvm::StoreInst::AssertOK(): Assertion `getOperand(0)->getType() == cast<PointerType>(getOperand(1)->getType())->getElementType() && "Ptr must be a pointer to Val type!"' failed.
The inheritance order goes as: Value<-User<-Constant, so this shouldn't be an issue, but it is. Using an a cast on the ConstantInt or ConstantFP has no effect on this error.
So I've tried this bloated solution:
Value *new_value;
if(isa<ConstantInt>(old_value) || isa<ConstantFP>(old_value)){
Instruction *allocInst = builder.CreateAlloca(old_value->getType());
builder.CreateStore(old_value, allocInst);
new_value = builder.CreateLoad(allocResultInst);
}
However this solution creates its own register errors when different type are involved, so I'd like to avoid it.
Does anyone know how to convert a Constant to a Value? It must be a simple issue that I'm not seeing. I'm developing on Ubuntu 12.04, LLVM 3, AMD gpu, OpenCL kernels.
Thanks ahead of time.
EDIT:
The original code that produces the first error listed is simply:
builder.CreateStore(old_value, store_addr);
EDIT2:
This old_value is declared as
Value *old_value = current_instruction->getOperand(0);
So I'm grabbing the value to be stored, in this case "10" from the first code line.
You didn't provide the code that caused this first assertion, but its wording is pretty clear: you are trying to create a store where the value operand and the pointer operand do not agree on their types. It would be useful for the question if you'd provide the code that generated that error.
Your second, so-called "bloated" solution, is the correct way to store old_value into the stack and then load it again. You write:
However this solution creates its own register errors when different type are involved
These "register errors" are the real issue you should be addressing.
In any case, the whole premise of "converting a constant to a value" is flawed - as you have correctly observed, all constants are values. There's no point storing a value into the stack with the sole purpose of loading it again, and indeed the standard LLVM pass "mem2reg" will completely remove such a sequence, replacing all uses of the load with the original value.

Assert type information onto computed results in Julia

Problem
I read in an array of strings from a file.
julia> file = open("word-pairs.txt");
julia> lines = readlines(file);
But Julia doesn't know that they're strings.
julia> typeof(lines)
Array{Any,1}
Question
Can I tell Julia this somehow?
Is it possible to insert type information onto a computed result?
It would be helpful to know the context where this is an issue, because there might be a better way to express what you need - or there could be a subtle bug somewhere.
Can I tell Julia this somehow?
No, because the readlines function explicitly creates an Any array (a = {}): https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/master/base/io.jl#L230
Is it possible to insert type information onto a computed result?
You can convert the array:
r = convert(Array{ASCIIString,1}, w)
Or, create your own readstrings function based on the link above, but using ASCIIString[] for the collection array instead of {}.
Isaiah is right about the limits of readlines. More generally, often you can say
n = length(A)::Int
when generic type inference fails but you can guarantee the type in your particular case.
As of 0.3.4:
julia> typeof(lines)
Array{Union(ASCIIString,UTF8String),1}
I just wanted to warn against:
convert(Array{ASCIIString,1}, lines)
that can fail (for non-ASCII) while I guess, in this case nothing needs to be done, this should work:
convert(Array{UTF8String,1}, lines)

How to create a collection in Julia?

This seems like a really basic question, but can't find the answer. How do I create a collection in Julia? For example, I want to open a text file and parse each line to create an (iterable or otherwise) collection. Obviously I don't know how many elements there are in advance.
I can iterate through the lines like this
I = each_line(open(fileName,"r"))
state = start(I)
while !done(I, state)
(i, state) = next(I, state)
println(i)
end
But I don't know how to put each i into an array or other collection. I tried
map( i -> println(i), each_line(open(fileName,"r") ) )
But got the error
no method map(Function,EachLine)
You could do this:
lines = String[]
for line in each_line(open(fileName))
push!(lines, line)
end
And then lines contains the list of lines. You need the String in the first line to make the array extensible.
Standard collections and supported operations are mainly covered in the standard library documentation.
Specifically, the Deques section covers all of the operations supported by the 1d Array type (vector), including push! and pop! as well as insertion, resizing, etc.
Omar's answer is correct, and I will just add a small qualification: String[] creates a 1d array of Strings. The same constructor syntax may be used for example to create Int[], Float[], or even Any[] vectors. The latter type may hold objects of any type.
Depending on your Julia version, you may also be able to write collect(eachline(open("LICENSE.md"))) or [eachline(open("LICENSE.md"))...]. I think these won't work in 0.1.x versions but will working in newer 0.2 development versions (which are recommended at this point – 0.2 is on its way soon).

Pointer to pointer and NewHandle function in (Think) Pascal

What is a purpose in Pascal to declare variable that is pointer to a pointer? I have a code in Mac Think Pascal. Here is some parts from the code that I don't understand:
type
my_array = array[1..100] of integer;
my_array_pointer = ^my_array;
my_array_handle = ^my_array_pointer;
...
var
xx : my_array_handle;
...
begin
xx:= my_array_handle(NewHandle( sizeof(my_array)) );
As you see, the last line is an assignment of a type my_array_handle to variable xx. What does it mean? What does NewHandle function do? (This is an internal function of Think Pascal). Actually, I need to convert a Think Pascal program to Windows Pascal. However I cannot find the description of NewHandle function, and don't know how to implement this function using the standard (New(), GetMem() etc) pointer functions.
This is a classic macos feature, not typically something of Pascal.
I don't know exactly, but it had something to do with relocatability of the loaded program in a non PM environment.
Note that the indirect pointer is allocated via an OS function, which probably means that it is allocated in some table that is maintained by the OS. (so that the OS can move/relocate the program?)
In modern Mac (and other) programming this whole principle is alien. Just clean it up.
(added)
If you want to keep these redirections, you could try your luck with something like:
function newhandle( nrbytes:integer):ppointer;
var xx : ppointer;
begin
new(xx);
getmem(xx^,nrbytes);
newhandle:=xx;
end;
I didn't add this originally, but I recommend you simply clean up these anachronistic indirect references and use my_array_pointer based pointers and getmem or new directly.
The meaning of these indirect references has no use on non m68k Classic Mac OS systems, though afaik later PPC versions still somewhat support them. (PPC is always protected mode)
If you really want the gritty details, you probably want to subscribe to the mac-pascal list.

Matlab: Attempt to reference field of non-structure array

I am using the Kernel Density Estimator toolbox form http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ihler/code/kde.html . But I am getting the following error when I try to execute the demo files -
>> demo_kde_3
KDE Example #3 : Product sampling methods (single, anecdotal run)
Attempt to reference field of non-structure array.
Error in double (line 10)
if (npd.N > 0) d = 1; % return 1 if the density exists
Error in repmat (line 49)
nelems = prod(double(siz));
Error in kde (line 39)
if (size(ks,1) == 1) ks = repmat(ks,[size(points,1),1]); end;
Error in demo_kde_3 (line 8)
p = kde([.1,.45,.55,.8],.05); % create a mixture of 4 gaussians for
testing
Can anyone suggest what might be wrong? I am new to Matlab and having a hard time to figure out the problem.
Thank You,
Try changing your current directory away from the #kde folder; you may have to add the #kde folder to your path when you do this. For example run:
cd('c:\');
addpath('full\path\to\the\folder\#kde');
You may also need to add
addpath('full\path\to\the\folder\#kde\examples');
Then see if it works.
It looks like function repmat (a mathworks function) is picking up the #kde class's version of the double function, causing an error. Usually, only objects of the class #kde can invoke that functions which are in the #kde folder.
I rarely use the #folder form of class definitions, so I'm not completely sure of the semantics; I'm curious if this has any effect on the error.
In general, I would not recommend using the #folder class format for any development that you do. The mathworks overhauled their OO paradigm a few versions ago to a much more familiar (and useful) format. Use help classdef to see more. This #kde code seems to predate this upgrade.
MATLAB gives you the code line where the error occurs. As double and repmat belong to MATLAB, the bug probably is in kde.m line 39. Open that file in MATLAB debugger, set a breakpoint on that line (so the execution stops immediately before the execution of that specific line), and then when the code is stopped there, check the situation. Try the entire code line in console (copy-paste or type it, do not single-step, as causing an uncatched error while single-stepping ends the execution of code in debugger), it should give you an error (but doesn't stop execution). Then try pieces of the code of that code line, what works as it should and what not, eg. does the result of size(points, 1) make any sense.
However, debugging unfamiliar code is not an easy task, especially if you're a beginner in MATLAB. But if you learn and understand the essential datatypes of MATLAB (arrays, cell arrays and structs) and the different ways they can be addressed, and apply that knowledge to the situation on the line 39 of kde.m, hopefully you can fix the bug.
Repmat calls double and expects the built-in double to be called.
However I would guess that this is not part of that code:
if (npd.N > 0) d = 1; % return 1 if the density exists
So if all is correct this means that the buil-tin function double has been overloaded, and that this is the reason why the code crashes.
EDIT:
I see that #Pursuit has already addressed the issue but I will leave my answer in place as it describes the method of detection a bit more.

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