I've written a Matlab class to handle dual numbers to do automatic differentiation. For almost all cases this works fine, and the new class is a drop-in replacement for the other numeric classes in most functions (the field 'x' gives the values of the function, and the field d gives the value of the derivative of the function at that point.)
>> x = mkdual([1 2 3]);
>> x.^2
ans =
Dual
Properties:
x: [1 4 9]
d: [2 4 6]
However, it fails when a function pre-allocates an output array, and assigns to the array by indexing into it. For example, the following is a common pattern in Matlab:
>> y=zeros(2) // Pre-allocate for speed
y =
0 0
0 0
>> x = 1;
>> y(1,:)=x
y =
1 1
0 0
Unfortunately this fails with my class, since it can't promote the array on the LHS of the assignment operator to a dual number:
>> x=mkdual(1);
>> y(2,:)=x
??? The following error occurred converting from Dual to double:
Error using ==> double
Conversion to double from Dual is not possible.
Can anyone suggest a fix or a workaround - preferably one which allows automatic promotion of the variable y to a Dual?
Your example isn't failing because it can't promote y to a Dual; it's failing because it tries to convert x to a double, and can't.
If you wanted to do that, you could add an overloaded double method to Dual that would do the conversion operation.
I'm guessing that's not what you want though, but rather you want a way of preallocating an array of dummy elements of class Dual. To do that you can design the constructor of Dual so that it will run with no input arguments, returning a dummy or default Dual. Then you can say y(2,2) = Dual and you'll have a 2x2 preallocated array of dummy Duals.
Search in the doc for 'Initializing arrays of value objects' for a fuller example.
Alternatively, you could make y a cell array instead of an array.
You will not be able to automatically promote y to a Dual, unless you are replacing the variable in its entirety (which defeats the benefits of preallocation).
However, you should be able to preallocate it as a Dual in the first place. I'm not sure of the syntax, and it may depend on your implementation, but something like:
mkdual(zeros(10,10))
Alternatively, you can do a lazy pre-allocation by loop backwards. That is, instead of
for ix = 1:100
y(ix) = mkdual(...)
end
Use
for ix = 100:-1:1
y(ix) = mkdual(...)
end
Related
I have recently sat a computing exam in university in which we were never taught beforehand about the modulus function or any other check for odd/even function and we have no access to external documentation except our previous lecture notes. Is it possible to do this without these and how?
Bitwise AND (&)
Extract the last bit of the number using the bitwise AND operator. If the last bit is 1, then it's odd, else it's even. This is the simplest and most efficient way of testing it. Examples in some languages:
C / C++ / C#
bool is_even(int value) {
return (value & 1) == 0;
}
Java
public static boolean is_even(int value) {
return (value & 1) == 0;
}
Python
def is_even(value):
return (value & 1) == 0
I assume this is only for integer numbers as the concept of odd/even eludes me for floating point values.
For these integer numbers, the check of the Least Significant Bit (LSB) as proposed by Rotem is the most straightforward method, but there are many other ways to accomplish that.
For example, you could use the integer division operation as a test. This is one of the most basic operation which is implemented in virtually every platform. The result of an integer division is always another integer. For example:
>> x = int64( 13 ) ;
>> x / 2
ans =
7
Here I cast the value 13 as a int64 to make sure MATLAB treats the number as an integer instead of double data type.
Also here the result is actually rounded towards infinity to the next integral value. This is MATLAB specific implementation, other platform might round down but it does not matter for us as the only behavior we look for is the rounding, whichever way it goes. The rounding allow us to define the following behavior:
If a number is even: Dividing it by 2 will produce an exact result, such that if we multiply this result by 2, we obtain the original number.
If a number is odd: Dividing it by 2 will result in a rounded result, such that multiplying it by 2 will yield a different number than the original input.
Now you have the logic worked out, the code is pretty straightforward:
%% sample input
x = int64(42) ;
y = int64(43) ;
%% define the checking function
% uses only multiplication and division operator, no high level function
is_even = #(x) int64(x) == (int64(x)/2)*2 ;
And obvisouly, this will yield:
>> is_even(x)
ans =
1
>> is_even(y)
ans =
0
I found out from a fellow student how to solve this simplistically with maths instead of functions.
Using (-1)^n :
If n is odd then the outcome is -1
If n is even then the outcome is 1
This is some pretty out-of-the-box thinking, but it would be the only way to solve this without previous knowledge of complex functions including mod.
Was fooling around with trying to reduce the length of the code so that it gives off fewer headaches to look at and debug, and I came across this curious little fact:
Debug.Print 5<9<8 'returns "True"
At first I thought this was because it just checked the first set, but then I found that
Debug.Print 5<4<8 '*also* returns "True"
Does VBA interpret this kind of triple inequality as an Or statement? I can't imagine why someone would choose to make that the interpretation VBA makes because it's almost certainly the less used option, but I struggle to think of another explanation.
Also, what is a quick and pretty way of writing If 5 < X < 8 Then (to use sample numbers), without having to resort to endless And statements, ie If 5 < x And X < 8 Then? It's okay for one statement, but the doubling of length adds up quick, especially since variables aren't typically named X.
Edit: okay, it's certainly not an Or because VBA also says that Debug.Print 8<6<2 is True. What on earth is it thinking?
I have no clue but my educated guess would be that it first evaluates the left side of the equation (5<9) which gives TRUE. Then, it proceeds to evaluate the rest (TRUE<8) and implicitly converts TRUE to its integer value (I believe this to be -1 in VB).
-1<8 -> TRUE
Works with the second case as well since FALSE will convert to 0 and 0<8.
Basically it would have everything to do with implicit conversion of boolean to integer and their respective value in VBA.
It's to do with the way VBA evaluates expressions and implicit conversion. The first part of the equation is evaluated and the result stored as a numeric value (the boolean is implicitly converted to an integer)
(well.... technically a boolean is just an integer, but we'll just go along like so...)
'// True = -1
'// False = 0
Debug.Print 5 < 9 < 8
Debug.Print CInt(5 < 9) '// Prints -1
Debug.Print -1 < 8 '// = True
Which is why the following gives "False" instead:
Debug.Print 5 < 9 < -1
Because
Debug.Print Cint(5 < 9) '// True = -1
Debug.Print -1 < -1 '// False
If you want to find out if something is in the middle of two other numbers then you have to use the And operator to force a separate evaluation (either side of the operator is then evaluated and compared logically)
Debug.Print (3 < 5 And 5 < 4) '// False
Looking at it from a parse tree perspective might shed more light about why it works that way.
Excluding whatever instruction comes after the THEN token, the parse tree for If 5 < X < 8 Then might look something like this (quite simplified):
The comparison operators being a binary operator, there's an expression on either side of it, and in order to resolve the Boolean expression for the IfBlockStatement, VBA needs to visit the tree nodes in a specific order: because VBA parses expressions left to right, the 5 < X part stands on its own as an expression, and then the result of that expression is used to resolve the {expression} < 8 part of the expression.
So when VBA resolves 5 < X, because that's a ComparisonExpression the result is a Boolean value; when that Boolean value then needs to be compared to the 8 integer literal, VBA performs an implicit type conversion and actually compares CInt({Boolean}) < 8, which will evaluate to True regardless of the result of the first expression, since False converts to 0 and True converts to -1 when expressed as an integer literal, and both are < 8.
These mechanics are built into how the runtime works, so in order to evaluate if X is between 5 and 8, you need to build your expression so that it's parsed as such:
If X > 5 And X < 8 Then
That gives you two distinct expression trees joined by a LogicalAndOperator, which then works off a valid Boolean expression on either sides.
5<9<8 = True<8 = True
5<4<8 = False<8 = True
The other answers covered up nicely the first part of your question, but didn't satisfactorily cover up the second part of it, i.e. What is a quick and pretty way of writing If 5 < X < 8 Then (to use sample numbers), without having to resort to endless And statements, i.e. If 5 < x And X < 8 Then?
There are two ways. The first:
Select Case X
Case 5 To 8
...
End Select
Here, the value before the To keyword must be the smaller value of the two. Also note that while this will work for integers, I have no idea if it works for types like Double and such (I suspect it won't though).
The second way, which works irrespective of whether the interval bounds are integers or not, is not necessarily shorter, but it evaluates things in a single comparison:
If Sgn(x - 5) + Sgn(x - 8) = 0 Then ...
This is an interesting way of evaluating whether a value is between some bounds, because it can also provide information on whether the value is equal to one of those bounds or is "outside" them (and on which "side" it is). For example, on a -∞..0..+∞ axis:
if x = 4, the expression above is -2, thus x is to the left of the (5..8) interval
if x = 5, the expression above is -1, thus x is the left bound of the (5..8) interval
if x = 6, the expression above is 0, thus x is inside the (5..8) interval, i.e. between its bounds
if x = 8, the expression above is 1, thus x is the right bound of the (5..8) interval
if x = 9, the expression above is 2, thus x is to the right of the (5..8) interval
Of course, if you want to include the bounds in the interval, say, test If 5 <= x And X <= 8 Then, the comparison above becomes If Abs(Sgn(x - 5) + Sgn(x - 8)) < 2 Then ..., which is another shortcut to check if the expression is -1, 0 or 1.
In the end, none of the ways above are as short as a Between(x, 5, 8) hypothetical function, but at least they are alternatives to the "classical" method.
I have defined the following:
typdef enum {
none = 0,
alpha = 1,
beta = 2,
delta = 4
gamma = 8
omega = 16,
} Greek;
Greek t = beta | delta | gammax
I would like to be able to pick one of the flags set in t randomly. The value of t can vary (it could be, anything from the enum).
One thought I had was something like this:
r = 0;
while ( !t & ( 2 << r ) { r = rand(0,4); }
Anyone got any more elegant ideas?
If it helps, I want to do this in ObjC...
Assuming I've correctly understood your intent, if your definition of "elegant" includes table lookups the following should do the trick pretty efficiently. I've written enough to show how it works, but didn't fill out the entire table. Also, for Objective-C I recommend arc4random over using rand.
First, construct an array whose indices are the possible t values and whose elements are arrays of t's underlying Greek values. I ignored none, but that's a trivial addition to make if you want it. I also found it easiest to specify the lengths of the subarrays. Alternatively, you could do this with NSArrays and have them self-report their lengths:
int myArray[8][4] = {
{0},
{1},
{2},
{1,2},
{4},
{4,1},
{4,2},
{4,2,1}
};
int length[] = {1,1,1,2,1,2,2,3};
Then, for any given t you can randomly select one of its elements using:
int r = myArray[t][arc4random_uniform(length[t])];
Once you get past the setup, the actual random selection is efficient, with no acceptance/rejection looping involved.
I'm trying to divide one number by another and then immediately ceil() the result. These would normally be variables, but for simplicity let's stick with constants.
If I try any of the following, I get 3 when I want to get 4.
double num = ceil(25/8); // 3
float num = ceil(25/8); // 3
int num = ceil(25/8); // 3
I've read through a few threads on here (tried the nextafter() suggestion from this thread) as well as other sites and I don't understand what's going on. I've checked and my variables are the numbers I expect them to be and I've in fact tried the above, using constants, and am still getting unexpected results.
Thanks in advance for the help. I'm sure it's something simple that I'm missing but I'm at a loss at this point.
This is because you are doing integer arithmetic. The value is 3 before you are calling ceil, because 25 and 8 are both integers. 25/8 is calculated first using integer arithmetic, evaluating to 3.
Try:
double value = ceil(25.0/8);
This will ensure the compiler treats the constant 25.0 as a floating point number.
You can also use an explicit cast to achieve the same result:
double value = ceil(((double)25)/8);
This is because the expressions are evaluated before being passed as an argument to the ceil function. You need to cast one of them to a double first so the result will be a decimal that will be passed to ceil.
double num = ceil((double)25/8);
I was following 'A tour of GO` on http://tour.golang.org.
The table 15 has some code that I cannot understand. It defines two constants with the following syntax:
const (
Big = 1<<100
Small = Big>>99
)
And it's not clear at all to me what it means. I tried to modify the code and run it with different values, to record the change, but I was not able to understand what is going on there.
Then, it uses that operator again on table 24. It defines a variable with the following syntax:
MaxInt uint64 = 1<<64 - 1
And when it prints the variable, it prints:
uint64(18446744073709551615)
Where uint64 is the type. But I can't understand where 18446744073709551615 comes from.
They are Go's bitwise shift operators.
Here's a good explanation of how they work for C (they work in the same way in several languages).
Basically 1<<64 - 1 corresponds to 2^64 -1, = 18446744073709551615.
Think of it this way. In decimal if you start from 001 (which is 10^0) and then shift the 1 to the left, you end up with 010, which is 10^1. If you shift it again you end with 100, which is 10^2. So shifting to the left is equivalent to multiplying by 10 as many times as the times you shift.
In binary it's the same thing, but in base 2, so 1<<64 means multiplying by 2 64 times (i.e. 2 ^ 64).
That's the same as in all languages of the C family : a bit shift.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitwise_operation#Bit_shifts
This operation is commonly used to multiply or divide an unsigned integer by powers of 2 :
b := a >> 1 // divides by 2
1<<100 is simply 2^100 (that's Big).
1<<64-1 is 2⁶⁴-1, and that's the biggest integer you can represent in 64 bits (by the way you can't represent 1<<64 as a 64 bits int and the point of table 15 is to demonstrate that you can have it in numerical constants anyway in Go).
The >> and << are logical shift operations. You can see more about those here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_shift
Also, you can check all the Go operators in their webpage
It's a logical shift:
every bit in the operand is simply moved a given number of bit
positions, and the vacant bit-positions are filled in, usually with
zeros
Go Operators:
<< left shift integer << unsigned integer
>> right shift integer >> unsigned integer