[Scilab-Dev] New xcos blocks executing scilab primitive functions

Mon Apr 9 15:27:22 CEST 2018

Hello Eric,

As described in some guides [1][2], the interpreter will call a gateway passing values using the C++
/ C object-oriented / C stack-oriented APIs depending how you declared it. On the gateway you are
free to do whatever you want with the data. 

[1]: https://wiki.scilab.org/howto/Create%20a%20toolbox#Gateway
[2]: https://wiki.scilab.org/Developers

However for Xcos, the story is a bit different as the blocks will be called by a simulator (ODE /
IDA solver) not an interpreter ; the API is different and called scicos_block4 ; using a C-block you
have to describe the interface and write some code using the data passed as arguments.

Note: Scilab2C is a  toolbox which might (or might not) follow Scilab coding conventions.

--
Clément

Le lundi 09 avril 2018 à 12:33 +0200, Eric GERNOT a écrit :
> Hello Clement,
>  
> Thank you for this very clear answer.
> How does Scilab Gateways work? When we tap enter after entering the command line on the prompt,
> let's say to call a primitive, does the gateway also need the API ?
> Or is there a more direct way to do so ?
>  
> Regarding my questions on the libraries.
> Well, let's say I am a simple user of scilab, with no code development tools installed.
> Editing a c-block, seeing the #include math.h line was a bit scary, because I thought "this will
> require that I have put the math.h file at the good place on my computer".
> So I insert nothing in the code, click "ok" and the compilation is succesful. 
> Now after running Scilab 2 c toolbox on my custom code, a number of subdirectories with multiple
> files were created in my custom directory. I suppose if I want this scilab 2 c created code
> running in the c-block, I have to put these files where the block can access them at compilation
> time.
> Same if I created the code on my own. That is why I asked where the c-block compiler looks to find
> the files, or how do we configure this, as users.
>  
> Best regards,
> Eric
>  
>  
>  
>  
> > > Message du 09/04/18 09:37
> > > De : "Clément David" <Clement.David at esi-group.com>
> > > A : "dev at lists.scilab.org" <dev at lists.scilab.org>
> > > Copie à : 
> > > Objet : Re: [Scilab-Dev] New xcos blocks executing scilab primitive functions
> > > 
> > > Hi Eric and welcome :)
> > > 
> > > Nice to have some power users (and maybe futur developers) using big Xcos models, Xcos in
> > 6.0.x have
> > > some issues only visible on big diagrams and we currently do not spend too much time
> > benchmarking
> > > it.
> > > 
> > > About the scifunc vs Superbloc vs C++ implementation speedup, the clear winner there would be
> > C/C++
> > > if (and only if) there is no event management (either discrete or zero-crossing) to perform.
> > Zero
> > > crossing detection is hard to implement even for small sub-systems and discrete events are
> > only easy
> > > for synchronous subsystem. Superblocs are straightforward to implement and manage very complex
> > > events / continuous states intrication in a clean manner however they can be confusing to
> > maintains
> > > (for exemple if you want to preserve the same behavior across different blocks). Scifunc are
> > in-
> > > between to me in term of implementation however very poor in term of performance (and not
> > optimized
> > > at all).
> > > 
> > > You could use the scicos_block4 API (the default one) in C or C++ ; if you take a look at our
> > source
> > > code there is only a few in C++ but they can be easily converted to. About the libraries, I
> > did not
> > > get it, do you want to link to different libraries ? The xcos_toolbox_skeleton and
> > ilib_for_build()
> > > flags are working well.
> > > 
> > > To call Scilab script within the sciblk2 [1] and sciblk4 [2] blocks we are indeed using the
> > Scilab
> > > C++ API, the performance overhead is quiet clear as we are currently allocating Scilab
> > types::Double
> > > or a types::MList through createblklist() for each output on each simulation step. This does
> > an
> > > extra allocation (for the Scilab datatype) and a copy (for the data copy to scilab) whereas in
> > C/C++
> > > the data are passed by reference to the shared buffers. We clearly have to do better there ;
> > maybe
> > > by allocating only once (at Initialization time) or passing types:: views to the shared
> > buffers.
> > > There is a test case within xcos_toolbox_skeleton which switch the implementation of a NOOP
> > block
> > > (that compute nothing) between Scilab and C depending on a parameter in Scilab.
> > > 
> > > [1]: http://cgit.scilab.org/scilab/tree/scilab/modules/scicos/src/cpp/sciblk2.cpp#n57
> > > [2]: http://cgit.scilab.org/scilab/tree/scilab/modules/scicos/src/cpp/sciblk4.cpp#n217
> > > 
> > > As a conclusion, yes you can call C++ functions from blocks and Scilab blocks issues comes
> > from a
> > > slow implementation of C->Scilab calls not from the Scilab code interpretation.
> > > 
> > > NB: yes this a known problem and some users already reports that but no one is currently
> > working on
> > > that.
> > > 
> > > Thanks,
> > > 
> > > --
> > > Clément
> > > 
> > > Le vendredi 06 avril 2018 à 05:47 -0700, ericgernot a écrit :
> > > > Hi, 
> > > > 
> > > > I am new to scilab, and I am not a developper, but I fear I may become one
> > > > because of Scilab :-;
> > > > I am on windows 7 /64, and installed some recent versions.
> > > > 
> > > > I created a physic model (chemical process with compositions, streams, etc.)
> > > > from a script and used xcos to solve it, only using Sci_func blocks calling
> > > > my functions (so that it is easily portable to other scilab versions). It
> > > > works as desired, so now I want to speed it up.
> > > > 
> > > > After all the possible improvements from vectorization, I decided to convert
> > > > 30% of my scifunc into superblocks, giving a 30% speedup boost to the model.
> > > > I could have written these in c/c++ also, but I suspect it would have taken
> > > > longer (for me)
> > > > 
> > > > My remaining scifunc blocks are using some scilab gateways such as fsolve,
> > > > diag, etc, thus the conversion is not as straighforward. 
> > > > 
> > > > I tried to convert it in c using the scilab 2 c toolbox, this is great for
> > > > all operations exept scilab gateways.
> > > > 
> > > > I had a look at how to create a new block, how the c-block work, and finally
> > > > how existing blocks are coded in c++.
> > > > 
> > > > If I understand well, the possibilities are
> > > > 1. copy the c++ primitive function code in a c-block, it will not work
> > > > because it is not c, and because I don't know which libraries should be
> > > > included. By the way, where can I put them so that the compiler finds them ?
> > > > 2. use scilab API from a xcos c-block and send jobs. Will it really skip the
> > > > interpreter ?
> > > > 3. create a new block as a user (from within scilab). But you can't use c++
> > > > can you ? So I have to write or find c equivalent of scilab primitives, this
> > > > is a pity !
> > > > 4. create a new block source code, and compile a new version of scilab with
> > > > the new block. I suppose that the same problem exists: converting to c
> > > > scilab primitives ?
> > > > 
> > > > So this raised a few questions:
> > > > - In the block source code, why not call scilab built in functions in c/c++
> > > > (not the gateway), only passing them the block arguments / parameters,
> > > > instead of pasting the code there. That would ease the creation of new
> > > > blocks isn't it ?
> > > > - can users call these built in functions in their custom blocks (e.g.
> > > > c-block) ? (I mean without invoking the parser etc., without linking already
> > > > linked libraries, etc.)
> > > > 
> > > > I suppose that many users ran through these problems.
> > > > Thank you very mucn
> > > > Regards, 
> > > > Eric
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > --
> > > > Sent from: http://mailinglists.scilab.org/Scilab-developers-Mailing-Lists-Archives-f2574944.
> > html
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