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cpplab

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Automatic type system that binds MATLAB code to C++ code

What?

A tool that automatically creates objects and classes on the fly based on object-oriented C++ code in MATLAB

Why?

  • MATLAB code is slow
  • C++ code is ~100x faster
  • MATLAB's codegen doesn't work with OOP

How?

cpplab reads C++ header files, and creates cpplab objects on the fly that mimic the objects in your C++ code. There are the following limitations:

  1. Your class must explicitly contain a constructor
  2. Only one constructor/class
  3. Construct arguments can only be numeric (no pointers, etc)

What is the sorcery?

Imagine you have some C++ classes defined in some .hpp files. cpplab can automatically bind to them, and build objects on the fly in MATLAB that mimic the structure of objects defined by those classes. For example:

NaV = cpplab('/path/to/NaV.hpp');

defines a NaV object

ans = 

 NaV object with:

     E : 30
     h : 1
  gbar : function_handle
     m : 0

that is a real, bona-fide MATLAB object that has the same properties as defined in your C++ class -- all without writing a single line of MATLAB code!

It gets crazier: you can endlessly nest objects, putting one inside the other:

AB = cpplab('/path/to/compartment.hpp');
AB.add(NaV);
AB

 compartment object with:

  Ca_average : 3.67713978387728
           A : 0.0628
      tau_Ca : 200
          Cm : 10
          Ca : 2.79665927035738
         vol : 0.0628
         phi : 90.64649968
           V : -45.6711026536245
      Ca_out : 3000
       Ca_in : 0.05
   Ca_target : 0
         NaV : NaV object

cpplab comes with some powerful features that makes working with these objects a breeze. For example, you can

S = AB.serialize; % converts the entire tree of objects into a vector

AB.deserialize(S); % update all parameters in the entire tree

% create links to all header files in the tree
AB.generateHeaders;

    {'/code/xolotl/c++/compartment.hpp'                     }
    {'/code/xolotl/c++/conductances/liu-approx/NaV.hpp'     }


% hash the entire tree, based on the contents of the C++ files:

x.hash

ans =

    'dfac882c1797c0a1a17407fc15e25dd911de3fb4'

Please make this stop

To see cpplab in action, check out the project for which this was created: xolotl, a neuron and network simulator to get a flavour for some of the wilder things you can do with this framework.