Re: Mathematica 9 does not read mathematica 8 ".mx" files
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- Subject: [mg129155] Re: Mathematica 9 does not read mathematica 8 ".mx" files
- From: John Fultz <jfultz at wolfram.com>
- Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 02:40:40 -0500 (EST)
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- References: <20121211072405.120E06877@smc.vnet.net> <CAEtRDSc0u8QF3EL-+=Of79Mq5fhD1ZjWOYYYMKWLJo7Ojuc7Nw@mail.gmail.com> <kaem7o$5mu$1@smc.vnet.net> <20121217075347.4900B68D2@smc.vnet.net>
On Dec 17, 2012, at 1:53 AM, David Bailey <dave at removedbailey.co.uk> wrote:
> On 14/12/2012 07:58, noomen mechri wrote:
>> Thanks for your reply!
>> yes, that's what I had to do ... rerun the whole calculation on M9 which
>> again took a few hours!! (I know ... not good at optimizing code)
>> But then what is the purpose of having .mx files to save the workspace
>> variables for future use ... if they can only be read by the version in
>> which they have been produced ... it is senseless ...
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 9:03 PM, Bob Hanlon<hanlonr357 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I've never used an .mx file; however, from the documentation:
>>>
>>> "MX files cannot be exchanged between different operating systems or
>>> versions of Mathematica."
>>>
>>> "Mathematica MX files can be created with DumpSave and read with Get."
>>>
>>> Did you save the source files from which you did a DumpSave? If so,
>>> move the source files to v9 and DumpSave new .mx files in v9.
>>>
>>>
>>> Bob Hanlon
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 2:24 AM, NBM<noomenov at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Having written a lot of code on M8, I recently switched to M9 and tried
>>> to
>>>> run the code which starts by loading an .mx file written by M8, but M9
>>> wouldn't read it saying that it was written on another machine. This is a
>>> major incompatibility issue between M8 and M9. Fortunately I kept my M8
>>> installation, so for now, M9 is useless to me.
>>>> Please a solution.
>>>>
>>>
>>
> I hit the restriction with .mx files some time ago.
>
> I really needed high speed, and I timed various alternatives. The best I
> found, was to write the data:
>
> str=OpenWrite[file,BinaryFormat->True];
> BinaryWrite[str,magic,"TerminatedString"];
> BinaryWrite[str,Compress[{expr,version}],"TerminatedString"];
> Close[str];
>
> (where magic is a short string to use as a sanity check when reading
> back - omit if you prefer. expr is the large expression)
>
> This can be read back with:
>
> str=OpenRead[file,BinaryFormat->True];
> If[BinaryRead[str,"TerminatedString"]==magic,
> expr=Uncompress[BinaryRead[str,"TerminatedString"]];
> ];
> Close[str];
>
> The important point here, is that Compress and Uncompress are both fast
> and portable.
>
> This isn't quite as fast as .mx files, but close!
>
> David Bailey
> http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk
A bit of trivia here. One reason why Uncompress is fast is because, like .mx files, there is no need to parse the contents. Much of what makes .m files (and .nb files) slower than the alternatives is the lexing and parsing steps.
What you get after uncompressing a string created with Compress[] is a block of memory which already represents a Mathematica-style expression tree and all of the basic machine types. This expression tree doesn't, bit for bit, mirror the kernel in-memory representation like the .mx files do, but the transformations to get it there are straightforward and much faster than parsing the data would be.
The compression algorithm can slow things down too, of course, but you get some of that time back by reducing the amount of I/O required.
Sincerely,
John Fultz
jfultz at wolfram.com
User Interface Group
Wolfram Research, Inc.
- References:
- Mathematica 9 does not read mathematica 8 ".mx" files
- From: NBM <noomenov@gmail.com>
- Re: Mathematica 9 does not read mathematica 8 ".mx" files
- From: David Bailey <dave@removedbailey.co.uk>
- Mathematica 9 does not read mathematica 8 ".mx" files