octave map over multiple arguments - dictionary

I want to map a function that takes two arguments over two vectors of the same length, taking an argument from each of these vectors. I can do it with one argument:
map(#sqrt, 1:10)
ans = ....
help map gives the following example:
map(#min, A, B)
ans = ...
where A and B are 2 by 2 matrices, and the result matrix is the element-wise minimum. But when I try this example, I get the following error:
A = rand(2,2);
B = rand(2,2);
map(#min, A, B)
error: invalid assignment to cs-list outside multiple assignment.
error: assignment to cell array failed
error: assignment failed, or no method for `<unknown type> = scalar'
error: called from:
error: C:\Octave\3.2.4_gcc-4.4.0\share\octave\packages\miscellaneous-1.0.9\map.m at line 108, column 21
What am I doing wrong? My system is Win7, 64 bit, and as you can see, my octave version is 3.2.4.

Thanks to this question, I was able to find out that map is being deprecated, and the correct function to use is arrayfun, which works out of the box, both with octave version 3.2.4, which is what I got when downloading a normal windows installer, and with octave version 3.6.2, which I got using cygwin. In version 3.6.2 it even seems that map requires the miscellaneous package, which arrayfun does not.
So I will never know what I did wrong, or if there is a bug (unlikely, given that the function is pretty standard), but my problem was solved by just substituting arrayfun:
A = rand(2,2);
B = rand(2,2);
arrayfun(#min, A, B)
ans = .... % correct answer

Related

Why is the FOR loop in my program producing empty matrices?

I am having a problem running a spiking-neuron simulator. I keep getting the error message, "operation +: Warning adding a matrix with the empty matrix will give an empty matrix result." Now I'm writing this program in "Scilab," but I'm hoping the problem I am having will be clear for the educated eye regardess. What I am doing is converting an existing MATLAB program to Scilab. The original MATLAB program and an explanation can be found here: https://www.izhikevich.org/publications/spikes.pdf
What happens in my Scilab version is that the first pass through the loop produces all the expected values. I Know this becuase I hit pause at the end of the first run, right before "end," and check all the values and matrix elements. However, if I run the program proper, which includes a loop of 20 iterations, I get the error message above, and all of the matrix values are empty! I cannot figure out what the problem is. I am fairly new to programming so the answer may be very simple as far as I know. Here is the Scilab version of the program:
Ne=8; Ni=2;
re=rand(Ne,1); ri=rand(Ni,1);
a=[0.02*ones(Ne,1); 0.02+0.08*ri];
b=[0.2*ones(Ne,1); 0.25-0.05*ri];
c=[-65+15*re.^2; -65*ones(Ni,1)];
d=[8-6*re.^2; 2*ones(Ni,1)];
S=[0.5*rand(Ne+Ni,Ne), -rand(Ne+Ni,Ni)];
v=60*rand(10,1)
v2=v
u=b.*v;
firings=[];
for t=1:20
I=[5*rand(Ne,1,"normal");2*rand(Ni,1,"normal")];
fired=find(v>=30);
j = length(fired);
h = t*ones(j,1);
k=[h,fired'];
firings=[firings;k];
v(fired)=c(fired);
u(fired)=u(fired)+d(fired);
I=I+sum(S(:,fired),"c");
v=v+0.5*(0.04*v.^2+5*v+140-u+I);
v=v+0.5*(0.04*v.^2+5*v+140-u+I);
u=u+a.*(b.*v-u);
end
plot(firings(:,1), firings(:,2),".");
I tried everything to no avail. The program should run through 20 iterations and produce a "raster plot" of dots representing the fired neurons at each of the 20 time steps.
You can add the following line
oldEmptyBehaviour("on")
at the beginning of your script in order to prevent the default Scilab rule (any algebraic operation with an empty matrix yields an empty matrix). However you will still have some warnings (despite the result will be OK). As a definitive fix I recommend testing the emptyness of fired in your code, like this:
Ne=8; Ni=2;
re=rand(Ne,1); ri=rand(Ni,1);
a=[0.02*ones(Ne,1); 0.02+0.08*ri];
b=[0.2*ones(Ne,1); 0.25-0.05*ri];
c=[-65+15*re.^2; -65*ones(Ni,1)];
d=[8-6*re.^2; 2*ones(Ni,1)];
S=[0.5*rand(Ne+Ni,Ne), -rand(Ne+Ni,Ni)];
v=60*rand(10,1)
v2=v
u=b.*v;
firings=[];
for t=1:20
I=[5*rand(Ne,1,"normal");2*rand(Ni,1,"normal")];
fired=find(v>=30);
if ~isempty(fired)
j = length(fired);
h = t*ones(j,1);
k=[h,fired'];
firings=[firings;k];
v(fired)=c(fired);
u(fired)=u(fired)+d(fired);
I=I+sum(S(:,fired),"c");
end
v=v+0.5*(0.04*v.^2+5*v+140-u+I);
v=v+0.5*(0.04*v.^2+5*v+140-u+I);
u=u+a.*(b.*v-u);
end
plot(firings(:,1), firings(:,2),".");
The [] + 1 is not really defined in a mathematical sense. The operation might fail or produce different results depending on the software you use. For example:
Scilab 5 [] + 1 produces 1
Scilab 6 [] + 1 produces [] and a warning
Julia 1.8 [] .+ 1 produces [] but [] + 1 an error.
Python+Numpy 1.23 np.zeros((0,0)) + 1 produces [].
I suggest checking with size() or a comparison to the empty matrix to avoid such strange behaviour.

Julia CUDA: UndefVarError: parameters not defined

I have a program for doing Fourier series and I wanted to switch to CuArrays to make it faster. The code is as follows (extract):
#Arrays I want to use
coord = CuArray{ComplexF64,1}(complex.(a[:,1],a[:,2]))
t=CuArray{Float64,1}(-L:(2L/(N-1)):L)
#Array of indexes in the form [0,1,-1,2,-2,...]
n=[((-1)^i)div(i,2) for i in 1:grado]
#Array of functions I need for calculations
base= [x -> exp(π * im * i * x / L) / L for i in n]
base[i](1.) #This line is OK
base[i](-1:.1:1) #This line is OK
base[i].(t) #This line gives error!
base[i].(CuArray{Float64,1}(t)) #This line gives error!
And the error is:
GPU broadcast resulted in non-concrete element type Any.
This probably means that the function you are broadcasting contains an error or type instability.
If I change it like this
base= [(x::Float64) -> (exp(π * im * i * x / L) / L)::ComplexF64 for i in n]
the same lines still give error, but the error now is:
UndefVarError: parameters not defined
Any idea how I could fix this?
Thank you in advance!
Package information:
(#v1.6) pkg> st CUDA
Status `C:\Users\marce\.julia\environments\v1.6\Project.toml`
[052768ef] CUDA v2.6.2
P.S.: This other function has the same problem:
function integra(inizio, fine, arr)
N=size(arr,1)
h=(fine-inizio)/N
integrale=sum(arr)
integrale -= (first(arr)+last(arr))/2
integrale *= h
end
L=2
integra(-L,L,coord)
The first and easier problem is that you should take care to declare global variables to be constant so that the compiler can assume a constant type: const L = 2. A mere L = 2 allows you to do something like L = SomeOtherType(), and if that type can be Anything, so must the return type of your functions. On the CPU that's only a performance hit, but it's a no-no for the GPU. If you actually want L to vary in value, pass it in as an argument so the compiler can still infer types within a function.
Your ::ComplexF64 assertion did actually force a concrete return type, though the middle of the function is still type unstable (check with #code_warntype). The second problem you ran into after that patch was probably caused by this recently patched conflict between ExprTools.jl and LLVM.jl. Seems like you just need to update the packages or maybe reinstall them.

Modifying R variable assigned to a literal through C leading to strange behavior

Does anyone know what is going on with the following R code?
library(inline)
increment <- cfunction(c(a = "integer"), "
INTEGER(a)[0]++;
return R_NilValue;
")
print_one = function(){
one = 0L
increment(one)
print(one)
}
print_one() # prints 1
print_one() # prints 2
The printed results are 1, 2. Replacing one = 0L with one = integer(1) gives result 1, 1.
Just to clarify. I know I'm passing the variable one by reference to the C function, so its value should change (become 1). What I don't understand is that, how come resetting one = 0L seem to have no effect at all after the first call to print_one (the second call to print_one prints 2 instead of 1).
This really (as the last comment hinted) have little to do with Rcpp. It's really mostly about the .C() interface used by the old inline package and here by cfunction approach in the question.
That leads to two answers.
First, the consensus among R developers is that .C() is deprecated and should no longer be used. Statements to that effect can be found on the r-devel and r-package-devel lists. .C() uses plain old types as pointers in the interface so here the integer value is passed as int* by reference and can be altered.
If we switch to Rcpp uses, and hence to the underlying .Call() interface using only SEXP types for input and output, then an int no passes by reference. So the code behaves and prints only 0:
Rcpp::cppFunction("void increment2(int a) { a++; }")
print_two <- function(){
two <- 0L
increment2(two)
print(two)
}
print_two() # prints 0
print_two() # prints 0
Lastly, Rcpp (capital R) is of course not the "sucessor" to inline (as it does a whole lot more than inline but it among all its functionality is (since around 2013) a quasi-replacement for inline in Rcpp Attributes. So with Rcpp 'as-is' since about 2013 you no longer need the examples and approach from inline.

Debugging unexpected errors in R -- how can I find where the error occurred?

Sometimes R throws me errors such as
Error in if (ncol(x) != 2) { : argument is of length zero
with no additional information, when I've written no such code. Is there a general way for finding which function in which package causes an error?
Since most packages come compressed, it isn't trivial to grep /usr/lib/R/library.
You can use traceback() to locate where the last error occurred. Usually it will point you to a call you make in your function. Then I typically put browser() at that point, run the function again and see what is going wrong.
For example, here are two functions:
f2 <- function(x)
{
if (x==1) "foo"
}
f <- function(x)
{
f2(x)
}
Note that f2() assumes an argument of length 1. We can misuse f:
> f(NULL)
Error in if (x == 1) "foo" : argument is of length zero
Now we can use traceback() to locate what went wrong:
> traceback()
2: f2(x) at #3
1: f(NULL)
The number means how deep we are in the nested functions. So we see that f calls f2 and that gives an error at line 3. Pretty clear. We could reassign f with browser placed just before the f2 call now to check it's input. browser() simply allows you to stop executing a function and look around in its environment. Similar to debug and debugonce except that you don't have to execute every line up until the point you know something goes wrong.
Just to add to what #SachaEpskamp has already suggested, setting options(error=recover) and options(show.error.locations=TRUE) can be extremely helpful when debugging unfamiliar code. The first causes R to launch a debugging session on error, giving you the option to invoke the browser at any point in the call stack up to that error. The second option will tell R to include the source line number in the error.

Can't add constant to vector in R

I don't know what is happening, but I can't seem to add a constant to a vector. For example, typing in the console c(1,2,3,4)+5 returns 15 instead of (6,7,8,9). What am I doing wrong?
Thank you for your help.
Someone.... probably you ... has redefined the "+" function. It's easy to do:
> `+` <- function(x,y) sum(x,y)
> c(1,2,3,4)+5
[1] 15
It's easy to fix, Just use rm():
> rm(`+`)
> c(1,2,3,4)+5
[1] 6 7 8 9
EDIT: The comments (which raised the alternate possibility that c had instead been redefined as sum) are prompting me to add information about how to examine and recover from the alternative possibilities. You could use two methods to determine which of the two functions in the expression c(1,2,3,4) + 5 was the culprit. One could either type their names (with the backticks enclosing +), and note whether you got the proper definition:
> `+`
function (e1, e2) .Primitive("+")
> c
function (..., recursive = FALSE) .Primitive("c")
Using rm on the culprit (the on that doesn't match above) remains the quickest solution. Using a global rm is an in-session brainwipe:
rm(list=ls())
# all user defined objects, including user-defined functions will be removed
The advice to quit and restart would not work in some situations. If you quit-with-save, the current function definitions would be preserved. If you had earlier quit-with-save from a session where the redefinition occurred, then not saving in this session would not have fixed the problem, either. The results of prior session are held in a file named ".Rdata and this file is invisible for both Mac and Windows users because the OS file viewer (Mac's Finder.app or MS's Windows Explorer) will not display file names that begin with a "dot". I suspect that Linux users get to see them by default since using ls in a Terminal session will show them. (It's easy to find ways to change that behavior in a Mac, and that is the way I run my device.) Deleting the .Rdata file is helpful in this instance, as well as in the situation where your R session crashes on startup.

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