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