Re: Octave engine: any update?

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

On 25 March 2013 10:06, MrOba <address@hidden> wrote:
> But what`s the point of an octave-forge engine package then?

I'm not sure, to be frank. Looking through its source code, it looks
like all it does is implement some rather trivial C functions for
talking to Octave through a pipe. The MEX interface was originally
also in Octave-Forge. It is now part of Octave:

    
http://hg.savannah.gnu.org/hgweb/octave/file/8097a052ec57/libinterp/interp-core/mex.h#l43

> Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso-2 wrote
>>> Matlab has updated its engine from the times the library has been
>>> coded and provides functions like engGetVariable and engPutVariable,
>>> and this is exactly what I need.. Does somebody has any hint where
>>> to start to find something like that?
>>
>> AIUI, you're asking for extra mex functions in Octave. I don't think
>> this has been implemented, but if you're interested in implementing
>> these extra mex functions in Octave, I can help you get started and
>> show you where in the Octave source code these extra functions would
>> need to go.
>
> That would be very helpful.. or at least a starting point. Don't know if
> I'll be able to implement something really working.. but having a look will
> not hurt.

Well, it looks like it's a matter of porting those functions you see
in the engine package (which is really tiny) into the mex API that I
linked to above.

Alternatively, you can just talk to Octave through a pipe without
going through the MEX API, if this all you want. Or you can add the
extra functions you need to the engine package. However, it seems to
me like the new functions you want actually directly manipulate Octave
memory, so they probably do need to be part of Octave's MEX
implementation.

This all seems to me kind of silly, though, implement a wrapper for
Matlab code written to use an "engine", an engine which in turn was
written to get around Matlab's licensing restrictions in order to get
more money out of Matlab's users.

Why not just use Octave's own C++ API?

- Jordi G. H.