Hello John,
I'm not sure my previous mail was clear with the doubts that I had
encountered. As I'm a bit stuck with it, I would like to know whether I
should try to make the SWIG bindings while keeping the CPP code intact, or
should I try to convert the Instance module to the C Code and then try to
have a go at the SWIG bindings.
Let me know at the earliest so that I can start on my proposal for the same.
Thank you!
On Sat, Mar 14, 2015 at 4:44 AM Shivam Chaturvedi <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello John,
> I had a good look at the interface file that has been described in the
> ascxx interface file as well as the ones described for the fprops module.
> Although the fprops module is fully written in C and hence is easily
> convertable to corresponding python bindings, I've had some trouble doing
> the same for the ascxx module, one of which, as you described was the
> 'Instanc' module. What I'm not sure at the moment is whether the module
> needs a complete C++ to C rewrite or not. Although that can be done by
> converting the classes to their corresponding structures with the methods
> built for each class method, while the members, as I can see, would be the
> member variables of the structure. To remove the STL part, for example
> where Template class T structure occurs, it could be normalized for the
> exact variables for each of the types possible. I saw that the two types
> that would be replaces by the template have long and SymChar as the
> candidates for template substitution.
> Also, I wasn't sure why the headers are straight on pasted into the
> interface file. We could potentially normalize the template substitution
> and then define the same in the instance.h file and then just include the
> instance.h file in the ascxx interface file.
> Also, if we were to start removing C++ code and replace it with pure C
> code, which though possible, seems like a task that should take the
> duration of the GSoC project.
>
> It would be awesome if you could clear the above doubts and we could move
> further in our development.
>
> Thank you!
>
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 10:25 AM John Pye <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Hi Shivam
>>
>> Sounds like you are on the right path. Have a go at the SWIG bindings for
>> Instance following the pattern of FPROPS. Give it a try, let me know when
>> you have something.
>>
>> Thanks for the clarification about the wiki info. I will try to get that
>> updated ASAP.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> JP
>>
>>
>> On 10/03/15 02:50, Shivam Chaturvedi wrote:
>>
>> Hello John,
>> I've had a look at the ascxx interface file and I saw how the Instance
>> file is defined as a list of the prototypes instead of a single header file
>> as the other classes have been defined. I believe the task right now is to
>> convert this list of prototypes to a similar header file that can directly
>> be included in the interface file. I've studies the involved source codes.
>> I'm continuing to understand the system by looking at the FPROPS module as
>> you told me to.
>> I believe it would be good for me to develop the SWIG interface file for
>> the Instance class so that you could see if I have developed enough
>> understanding of the rewriting process.
>>
>> Would love to hear from you on further steps.
>>
>> *PS* I looked at the Building ASCEND wiki page, and the svn checkout
>> link is incorrectly stated as
>> ' svn co svn://ascend4.org/code/trunk ascend ' which seems to refuse
>> connections.
>> instead of
>> ' svn co http://svn.ascend4.org/trunk/ ascend ' which works fine.
>>
>>
>> Thank you!
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 3:30 PM Shivam Chaturvedi <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Thank you for such a detailed response. I looked at SWIG before I found
>>> this project interesting and I agree that it would make our lives quite
>>> easier if we followed SWIG and later came up with binding for R, Octave
>>> etc. (which was also something I thought of when I looked at SWIG as a
>>> project, but yeah, later developments).
>>> I'll look into the suggested readings and get back to you with my ideas.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Shivam
>>>
>>> On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 6:59 AM John Pye <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Shivam
>>>>
>>>> As you can probably appreciate, this project represents a pretty major
>>>> effort and will require both a deep and broad understanding of the ASCEND
>>>> APIs in C, as well as the requirements of the current PyGTK GUI. I think
>>>> that the work should probably start with Pallav Tinna's branch of the
>>>> repository, which already migrates the GUI from GTK2 to GTK3 toolkit. The
>>>> goal would be to eliminate the C++ and STL code as far as possible, and aim
>>>> for faster and lighter Python bindings, while also aiming at a clean and
>>>> maintainable approach. I believe that SWIG is quite capable as a tool for
>>>> doing this, and I myself am very comfortable with SWIG, but if you can see
>>>> a strong case for adopting another tool then we can consider that. One
>>>> aspect of SWIG that is a appealing is that in principle it can be used to
>>>> target several different scripting languages. Of interest for scientific
>>>> work would be R, Octave, Scilab and possibly a couple of others. This is
>>>> not a priority for us, but is a mild reason to stick with the SWIG
>>>> approach, as I see it.
>>>>
>>>> For some inspiration on bindings from Python to C, I suggest you look
>>>> at the code of FPROPS [1]. That wrapper builds object-oriented Python
>>>> classes based around C structs and associated methods. I think that an
>>>> early start on the proposed project could be made by attempting to
>>>> reproduce this approach for the 'instance' data structures in the ASCEND C
>>>> API. You can take a look at how this is done currently at [2-4]. There is
>>>> probably benefit in also wrapping some of the generic types in ASCEND, such
>>>> as gl_list [5], which are used extensively if not quite universally, in the
>>>> ASCEND C code.
>>>>
>>>> Hopefully that provides some starting points for you. Take a look and
>>>> let me know how you go.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>> JP
>>>>
>>>> [1] http://code.ascend4.org/ascend/trunk/models/johnpye/
>>>> fprops/python/fprops.i?revision=2774&view=markup
>>>> [2] http://code.ascend4.org/ascend/trunk/ascxx/instance.cpp?view=markup
>>>> [3] http://code.ascend4.org/ascend/trunk/ascxx/instance.h?view=log
>>>> [4] http://code.ascend4.org/ascend/trunk/ascxx/ascpy.i?view=markup
>>>> [5] http://code.ascend4.org/ascend/trunk/ascend/general/
>>>> list.h?view=markup
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 05/03/15 06:31, Shivam Chaturvedi wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hello ASCEND Devs,
>>>> I am Shivam Chaturvedi. I had a look at one of your projects that I
>>>> became keenly interested on. It was the "Python Bindings Rewrite" project,
>>>> which understandably requires the knowledge of Python, C++ and knowledge of
>>>> concerned programming paradigms such as interfaces, etc. I'm fluent in both
>>>> the languages at a decent level and have previously worked a bit in both
>>>> (Even taught Python to undergrad students!).
>>>> I have downloaded ASCEND on my linux machine (and started to fiddle
>>>> with it!) to see how I would think the software must've been put up, in
>>>> addition to (trying) to read the source (mainly examples for now).
>>>> I wish to contribute in all ways possible to this project.
>>>> Might be needless, but to state, I'm a student at IIIT-Delhi, India,
>>>> and would love to work with you guys.
>>>> Please let me know what more I can do to help out.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>>> Shivam Chaturvedi
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>
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