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Passing arbitrary arrays to external programs

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg129694] Passing arbitrary arrays to external programs
• From: "David Liebtag" <davidliebtag at vermontel.net>
• Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2013 22:23:43 -0500 (EST)
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I am working a tool which supports editing arbitrary arrays. My editor is 
designed to accept and return arrays with any structure, type, and size. I 
have it working with a variety of array processing systems.

I would like to port my editor to Mathematica.  Initially, I thought that I 
could use MathLink to call my editor. I was encouraged when I read on page 
59 of the Mathematica Systems Interfaces and Deployment manual that 
MathLink allows you to exchange data of any type with external programs.
However, as far as I have been able to determine, MathLink requires a 
hard-coded description of the external program's argument's and result's 
structure and type.  Requiring a description of the argument and result 
misses the whole point of an arbitrary array editor.

Does anyone know if MathLink, or any other Mathematica interface to external 
programs, supports self-describing arrays so that a hard-coded description 
of the external program's argument and result is not required? If so, can 
you direct me to documentation about this facility?

Thank you very much.

David Liebtag
http://www.davidliebtag.com