From octave-maintainers-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu Wed Dec 18 14:46:29 2002
Subject: Re: Creating a standalone executable
From: "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
To: Paul Kienzle <pkienzle at jazz dot ncnr dot nist dot gov>
Cc: JD Cole <jdcole at san dot rr dot com>, "John W. Eaton" <jwe@bevo.che.wisc.edu>,    octave-maintainers@bevo.che.wisc.edu
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 14:46:16 -0600

On 18-Dec-2002, Paul Kienzle <pkienzle at jazz dot ncnr dot nist dot gov> wrote:

| octave_value is part of liboctinterp.  Many of the classes on which the
| octave_value types are based are defined in liboctave.  E.g., liboctave
| defines Matrix, which is wrapped by octave_matrix.
| 
| octave_value implements dynamic typing, so all operations must be looked
| up at run time every time they are invoked.  
| 
| Things like the * operator for the Matrix class, however, are resolvable
| at compile time.
| 
| Most of the code in e.g., src/DLD-FUNCTIONS, operates directly on values
| of the underlying type rather than on the octave_value item.

Right.  I'm not sure why you would want to operate directly on
octave_value objects unless you were working on a simple Octave to C++
translator or if you are trying to write some generic functions in C++.
(For example, C++ code that can do the equivalent of something like:

  function result = add (a, b)
    result = a + b;

and not have to do any type checking/value extraction before
attempting the addition.)

If you are writing generic functions, why not just write them in the
scripting language?

If you are working on a translator, then it might be useful to share
some of your ideas on the list.

Thanks,

jwe