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Calling functions with huge arguments

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg97621] Calling functions with huge arguments
• From: Fernando Cucchietti <fernando.cucchietti at icfo.es>
• Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 04:59:17 -0500 (EST)

Hi all,

I am working with a VERY large tensor, so much that I would like to  
keep at most two copies of it in memory at any given time. The  
algorithm I want to run is convoluted and repetitive, but it looks  
very compact when written in terms of subroutines and functions that  
call themselves many times. However, from what I gather, Mathematica  
effectively creates a copy of the arguments when a function is called.  
Is this correct?
If so, I need to find a way to mimic pass-by-reference style as in C  
or Fortran, or just pass the arguments that are not big and keep my  
tensors defined globally (which I think makes the code look less  
nice). Unwrapping the code so that it does not call functions is not  
an option, because it would be very complex and never-again-usable.
My main question is then: what are the best ways to do pass-by- 
reference (if it is better than global naming), or what approaches  
have you taken to overcome similar problems?

Thanks in advance,

Fernando

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Calling functions with huge arguments
    • From: DrMajorBob <btreat1@austin.rr.com>