Re: [Plplot-devel] Redacted dimension arguments

[Arjen M. <Arj...@de...>]

Hi Alan,



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan W. Irwin [mailto:ir...@be...]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2016 4:47 AM
> To: PLplot development list
> Subject: [Plplot-devel] Redacted dimension arguments
> ..., I came up with the following cunning plan....
>
> My new plan for handling redacted dimension arguments for the Fortran binding is
> simply to calculate n as the minimum dimension of the associated arrays with the
> only sanity check imposed on our users being that the resulting n > 0.  I think this
> way of handling things is a good one because it still gives the users some type of
> plot (and no memory management issues) even if they screw up and have one
> associated array inadvertently shorter than the rest.
>
I agree on this wrt one-dimensional arrays that are passed, but for two-dimensional arrays there is a slight complication with this scheme. Thinking out loud here ...

Suppose the user passes arrays x(10,10) and y(20,20) to a contouring routine, then the most consistent way for the wrapping routine to pass these two arrays would be to take an array section: x(1:10,1:10) and y(1:10,1:10). Hm, that could be done easily with Fortran - since the C routine has no notion of non-contiguous array sections, the interfacing features will transform it into a temporary array that is contiguous. No copying back is required as the arguments are intent(in).

Okay, this should work - provided it can be done for other bindings in the same way. I cannot comment too much on this aspect.

Your remark about the Tcl binding not using redacted dimension arguments triggered me look at it again. The current bindings use the matrix data type to store the values and that type does actually keep track of the dimensions, so with a twist to that binding, we can get the same benefits.

Regards,

Arjen



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