On 23 September 2010 02:00, Schwab,Wilhelm K <bschwab@anest.ufl.edu> wrote:
Sig,
Fair enough :) Â The most recent thing I recall on NativeBoost is Stef asking for what I assume must be a Mac plugin; I thought Linux would be left out too, but it appears not, though it is not in my current vm. Â Beyond some list traffic, I found this:
The work for supporting Linux and Mac is in progress.
 http://code.google.com/p/nativeboost/wiki/NativeBoost
Is there other documentation somewhere? Â Build instructions?
You can find all existing documentation, installation instructions on wiki pages at the above site. There is no other place for it. http://code.google.com/p/nativeboost/wiki/Installation - installation instructions.
You have a block copy, which is good. Â What about indexing, such as getting floats or doubles out of external memory?
This is just a piece of cake. ;) readDoubleFrom: address " This method loads the double from given external address. an address can be an instance of NBExternalAddress, or simple ByteArray with at least 8 bytes long, which holds a double floating value" <primitive: 'primitiveNativeCall' module: 'NativeBoostPlugin'> "We are using a pseudo-function prototype and supplying own assembler code, instead of making a call to external function. In given example, an address argument , after coercion is pushed on stack. " ^ NBFFICallout cdecl: #( double ( void * address) ) " A pseudo-function takes 1 argument, and returns double value. Under cdecl call convention, all floating point return types is returned in fp(0) CPU register" emitCall: [:gen | | asm | asm := gen asm. "Here , we expecting that an address value is already pushed on stack" asm pop: asm EAX; "load an address value into EAX register by popping a stack" fld: (asm EAX ptr64). "load a floating point value from memory, at base address, held in EAX register into fp(0) register, we are using #ptr64, to indicate that memory operand size is 64bits long" " return value set, we are done. A code generator will take care for emitting code, which converts a double floating point value into smalltalk object. " ] I just uploaded this example and also how to write doubles from/to memory. See at SqS/NativeBoost - NativeBoost-Examples package, class NBBasicExamples.
I am very comfortable adding functions to a library for integer and float/double calculations on "large" arrays and calling them via FFI; plugins are another story. Â Are there examples to follow?
Tell me, what examples you would like to see. I will gladly provide them.
Bill
________________________________________ From: pharo-project-bounces@lists.gforge.inria.fr [pharo-project-bounces@lists.gforge.inria.fr] On Behalf Of Igor Stasenko [siguctua@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 6:20 PM To: Pharo-project@lists.gforge.inria.fr Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] DoubleArray
On 23 September 2010 00:37, Schwab,Wilhelm K <bschwab@anest.ufl.edu> wrote:
Henry,
I have been getting away with #doubleAt: and #doubleAt:put:, and otherwise doing pretty much what you said, though I just use a byte array to hold the data. Â It seems to work; for FFI, I end up passing void pointers instead of double pointers, which I don't like doing.
Your point about using ordinary arrays makes sense to a point, though even w/o external interfacing, there is still a use for DoubleArray just as there is a use for String vs. an array of characters.
The main reason, why they are not here, that VM needs an additional set of primitives, which working with them.
<sellsman hat on> I can only say that with NativeBoost, you could be able to implement it quite easily in image and ship it in image, without a need to change VM or use external plugin. <sellsman hat off>
Bill
________________________________________ From: pharo-project-bounces@lists.gforge.inria.fr [pharo-project-bounces@lists.gforge.inria.fr] On Behalf Of Henrik Sperre Johansen [henrik.s.johansen@veloxit.no] Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 5:23 PM To: pharo-project@lists.gforge.inria.fr Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] DoubleArray
 On 22.09.2010 23:09, Schwab,Wilhelm K wrote:
Squeak, deliberately, does not have a double array class. Â Is that because there is some horrible reason it can't work, or because it won't work on certain platforms? If the goal is to pass it as a parameter to an external function, one way would be to subclass WordArray, storing(and reading) each Float in two elements, and have the endianness decided by Smalltalk endianness. Probably want a startUp method for the class to swap instances endianness if the platform has changed as well. Put another way, should we add such a class, if only via an external heap or whatever would be needed to make it reliable?
Bill More likely because no one has actually had a need for one. It's definitely not _needed_ in base, where normal arrays of floats would do the same job just as well, if not better. IMHO, if someone makes one, it so should probably be part of a package related to external interfacing.
Cheers, Henry
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-- Best regards, Igor Stasenko AKA sig.
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