NAME¶
Math::Symbolic - Symbolic calculations
SYNOPSIS¶
use Math::Symbolic;
my $tree = Math::Symbolic->parse_from_string('1/2 * m * v^2');
# Now do symbolic calculations with $tree.
# ... like deriving it...
my ($sub) = Math::Symbolic::Compiler->compile_to_sub($tree);
my $kinetic_energy = $sub->($mass, $velocity);
DESCRIPTION¶
Math::Symbolic is intended to offer symbolic calculation capabilities to the
Perl programmer without using external (and commercial) libraries and/or
applications.
Unless, however, some interested and knowledgable developers turn up to
participate in the development, the library will be severely limited by my
experience in the area. Symbolic calculations are an active field of research
in CS.
There are several ways to construct Math::Symbolic trees. There are no actual
Math::Symbolic objects, but rather trees of objects of subclasses of
Math::Symbolic. The most general but unfortunately also the least intuitive
way of constructing trees is to use the constructors of the
Math::Symbolic::Operator, Math::Symbolic::Variable, and
Math::Symbolic::Constant classes to create (nested) objects of the
corresponding types.
Furthermore, you may use the overloaded interface to apply the standard Perl
operators (and functions, see "OVERLOADED OPERATORS") to existing
Math::Symbolic trees and standard Perl expressions.
Possibly the most convenient way of constructing Math::Symbolic trees is using
the builtin parser to generate trees from expressions such as "2 *
x^5". You may use the "Math::Symbolic->parse_from_string()"
class method for this.
Of course, you may combine the overloaded interface with the parser to generate
trees with Perl code such as "$term * 5 * 'sin(omega*t+phi)'" which
will create a tree of the existing tree $term times 5 times the sine of the
vars omega times t plus phi.
There are several modules in the distribution that contain subroutines related
to calculus. These are not loaded by Math::Symbolic by default. Furthermore,
there are several extensions to Math::Symbolic available from CPAN as separate
distributions. Please refer to "SEE ALSO" for an incomplete list of
these.
For example, Math::Symbolic::MiscCalculus come with "Math::Symbolic"
and contains routines to compute Taylor Polynomials and the associated errors.
Routines related to vector calculus such as grad, div, rot, and Jacobi- and
Hesse matrices are available through the Math::Symbolic::VectorCalculus
module. This module is also able to compute Taylor Polynomials of functions of
two variables, directional derivatives, total differentials, and Wronskian
Determinants.
Some basic support for linear algebra can be found in
Math::Symbolic::MiscAlgebra. This includes a routine to compute the
determinant of a matrix of "Math::Symbolic" trees.
EXPORT¶
None by default, but you may choose to have the following constants exported to
your namespace using the standard Exporter semantics. There are two export
tags: :all and :constants. :all will export all constants and the
parse_from_string subroutine.
Constants for transcendetal numbers:
EULER (2.7182...)
PI (3.14159...)
Constants representing operator types: (First letter indicates arity)
(These evaluate to the same numbers that are returned by the type()
method of Math::Symbolic::Operator objects.)
B_SUM
B_DIFFERENCE
B_PRODUCT
B_DIVISION
B_LOG
B_EXP
U_MINUS
U_P_DERIVATIVE (partial derivative)
U_T_DERIVATIVE (total derivative)
U_SINE
U_COSINE
U_TANGENT
U_COTANGENT
U_ARCSINE
U_ARCCOSINE
U_ARCTANGENT
U_ARCCOTANGENT
U_SINE_H
U_COSINE_H
U_AREASINE_H
U_AREACOSINE_H
B_ARCTANGENT_TWO
Constants representing Math::Symbolic term types:
(These evaluate to the same numbers that are returned by the term_type()
methods.)
T_OPERATOR
T_CONSTANT
T_VARIABLE
Subroutines:
parse_from_string (returns Math::Symbolic tree)
CLASS DATA¶
The package variable $Parser will contain a Parse::RecDescent object that is
used to parse strings at runtime.
SUBROUTINES¶
parse_from_string¶
This subroutine takes a string as argument and parses it using a
Parse::RecDescent parser taken from the package variable
$Math::Symbolic::Parser. It generates a Math::Symbolic tree from the string
and returns that tree.
The string may contain any identifiers matching /[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_]*/ which
will be parsed as variables of the corresponding name.
Please refer to Math::Symbolic::Parser for more information.
EXAMPLES¶
This example demonstrates variable and operator creation using object prototypes
as well as partial derivatives and the various ways of applying derivatives
and simplifying terms. Furthermore, it shows how to use the compiler for
simple expressions.
use Math::Symbolic qw/:all/;
my $energy = parse_from_string(<<'HERE');
kinetic(mass, velocity, time) +
potential(mass, z, time)
HERE
$energy->implement(kinetic => '(1/2) * mass * velocity(time)^2');
$energy->implement(potential => 'mass * g * z(t)');
$energy->set_value(g => 9.81); # permanently
print "Energy is: $energy\n";
# Is how does the energy change with the height?
my $derived = $energy->new('partial_derivative', $energy, 'z');
$derived = $derived->apply_derivatives()->simplify();
print "Changes with the heigth as: $derived\n";
# With whatever values you fancy:
print "Putting in some sample values: ",
$energy->value(mass => 20, velocity => 10, z => 5),
"\n";
# Too slow?
$energy->implement(g => '9.81'); # To get rid of the variable
my ($sub) = Math::Symbolic::Compiler->compile($energy);
print "This was much faster: ",
$sub->(20, 10, 5), # vars ordered alphabetically
"\n";
OVERLOADED OPERATORS¶
Since version 0.102, several arithmetic operators have been overloaded.
That means you can do most arithmetic with Math::Symbolic trees just as if they
were plain Perl scalars.
The following operators are currently overloaded to produce valid Math::Symbolic
trees when applied to an expression involving at least one Math::Symbolic
object:
+, -, *, /, **, sqrt, log, exp, sin, cos
Furthermore, some contexts have been overloaded with particular behaviour:
'""' (stringification context) has been overloaded to produce the
string representation of the object. '0+' (numerical context) has been
overloaded to produce the value of the object. 'bool' (boolean context) has
been overloaded to produce the value of the object.
If one of the operands of an overloaded operator is a Math::Symbolic tree and
the over is undef, the module will throw an error
unless the operator
is a + or a -. If the operator is an addition, the result will be the
original Math::Symbolic tree. If the operator is a subtraction, the result
will be the negative of the Math::Symbolic tree. Reason for this inconsistent
behaviour is that it makes idioms like the following possible:
@objects = (... list of Math::Symbolic trees ...);
$sum += $_ foreach @objects;
Without this behaviour, you would have to shift the first object into $sum
before using it. This is not a problem in this case, but if you are applying
some complex calculation to each object in the loop body before adding it to
the sum, you'd have to either split the code into two loops or replicate the
code required for the complex calculation when
shift()ing the first
object into $sum.
Warning: The operator to use for exponentiation is the normal Perl
operator for exponentiation "**", NOT the caret "^" which
denotes exponentiation in the notation that is recognized by the
Math::Symbolic parsers! The "^" operator will be interpreted as the
normal binary xor.
EXTENDING THE MODULE¶
Due to several design decisions, it is probably rather difficult to extend the
Math::Symbolic related modules through subclassing. Instead, we chose to make
the module extendable through delegation.
That means you can introduce your own methods to extend Math::Symbolic's
functionality. How this works in detail can be read in Math::Symbolic::Custom.
Some of the extensions available via CPAN right now are listed in the "SEE
ALSO" section.
Math::Symbolic can become quite slow if you use it wrong. To be honest, it can
even be slow if you use it correctly. This section is meant to give you an
idea about what you can do to have Math::Symbolic compute as quickly as
possible. It has some explanation and a couple of 'red flags' to watch out
for. We'll focus on two central points: Creation and evaluation.
CREATING Math::Symbolic TREES¶
Math::Symbolic provides several means of generating Math::Symbolic trees (which
are just trees of Math::Symbolic::Constant, Math::Symbolic::Variable and most
importantly Math::Symbolic::Operator objects).
The most convenient way is to use the builtin parser (for example via the
"parse_from_string()" subroutine). Problem is, this darn thing
becomes really slow for long input strings. This is a known problem for
Parse::RecDescent parsers and the Math::Symbolic grammar isn't the shortest
either.
Try to break the formulas you parse into smallish bits. Test the parser
performance to see how small they need to be.
I'll give a simple example where this first advice is gospel:
use Math::Symbolic qw/parse_from_string/;
my @formulas;
foreach my $var (qw/x y z foo bar baz/) {
my $formula = parse_from_string("sin(x)*$var+3*y^z-$var*x");
push @formulas, $formula;
}
So what's wrong here? I'm parsing the whole formula every time. How about this?
use Math::Symbolic qw/parse_from_string/;
my @formulas;
my $sin = parse_from_string('sin(x)');
my $term = parse_from_string('3*y^z');
my $x = Math::Symbolic::Variable->new('x');
foreach my $var (qw/x y z foo bar baz/) {
my $v = $x->new($var);
my $formula = $sin*$var + $term - $var*$x;
push @formulas, $formula;
}
I wouldn't call that more legible, but you notice how I moved all the heavy
lifting out of the loop. You'll know and do this for normal code, but it's
maybe not as obvious when dealing with such code. Now, since this is still
slow and - if anything - ugly, we'll do something really clever now to get the
best of both worlds!
use Math::Symbolic qw/parse_from_string/;
my @formulas;
my $proto = parse_from_string('sin(x)*var+3*y^z-var*x");
foreach my $var (qw/x y z foo bar baz/) {
my $formula = $proto->new();
$formula->implement(var => Math::Symbolic::Variable->new($var));
push @formulas, $formula;
}
Notice how we can combine legibility of a clean formula with removing all
parsing work from the loop? The "implement()" method is described in
detail in Math::Symbolic::Base.
On a side note: One thing you could do to bring your computer to its knees is to
take a function like
sin(a*x)*cos(b*x)/e^(2*x), derive that in respect
to
x a couple of times (like, erm, 50 times?), call
"to_string()" on it and parse that string again.
Almost as convenient as the parser is the overloaded interface. That means, you
create a Math::Symbolic object and use it in algebraic expressions as if it
was a variable or number. This way, you can even multiply a Math::Symbolic
tree with a string and have the string be parsed as a subtree. Example:
my $x = Math::Symbolic::Variable->new('x');
my $formula = $x - sin(3*$x); # $formula will be a M::S tree
# or:
my $another = $x - 'sin(3*x)'; # have the string parsed as M::S tree
This, however, turns out to be rather slow, too. It is only about two to five
times faster than parsing the formula all the way.
Use the overloaded interface to construct trees from existing
Math::Symbolic objects, but if you need to create new trees quickly,
resort to building them by hand.
Finally, you can create objects using the "new()" constructors from
Math::Symbolic::Operator and friends. These can be called in two forms, a long
one that gives you complete control (signature for variables, etc.) and a
short hand. Even if it is just to protect your finger tips from burning, you
should use the short hand whenever possible. It is also
slightly
faster.
Use the constructors to build Math::Symbolic trees if you need speed.
Using a prototype object and calling "new()" on
that may help with the typing effort and should not result in a slow
down.
CRUNCHING NUMBERS WITH Math::Symbolic¶
As with the generation of Math::Symbolic trees, the evaluation of a formula can
be done in distinct ways.
The simplest is, of course, to call "value()" on the tree and have
that calculate the value of the formula. You might have to supply some input
values to the formula via "value()", but you can also call
"set_value()" before using "value()". But that's not
faster. For each call to "value()", the computer walks the complete
Math::Symbolic tree and evaluates the nodes. If it reaches a leaf, the
resulting value is propagated back up the tree. (It's a depth-first search.)
Calling value() on a Math::Symbolic tree requires
walking the tree for every evaluation of the formula. Use this if
you'll evaluate the formula only a few times.
You may be able to make the formula simpler using the Math::Symbolic
simplification routines (like "simplify()" or some stuff in the
Math::Symbolic::Custom::* modules). Simpler formula are quicker to evaluate.
In particular, the simplification should fold constants.
If you're going to evaluate a tree many times, try simplifying it first.
But again, your mileage may vary. Test first.
If the overhead of calling "value()" is unaccepable, you should use
the Math::Symbolic::Compiler to compile the tree to Perl code. (Which usually
comes in compiled form as an anonymous subroutine.) Example:
my $tree = parse_from_string('3*x+sin(y)^(z+1)');
my $sub = $tree->to_sub(y => 0, x => 1, z => 2);
foreach (1..100) {
# define $x, $y, and $z
my $res = $sub->($y, $x, $z);
# faster than $tree->value(x => $x, y => $y, z => $z) !!!
}
Compile your Math::Symbolic trees to Perl subroutines for evaluation in
tight loops. The speedup is in the range of a few thousands.
On an interesting side note, the subroutines compiled from Math::Symbolic trees
are just as fast as hand-crafted, "performance tuned" subroutines.
If you have extremely long formulas, you can choose to even resort to more
extreme measures than generating Perl code. You can have Math::Symbolic
generate C code for you, compile that and link it into your application at run
time. It will then be available to you as a subroutine.
This is not the most portable thing to do. (You need Inline::C which in turn
needs the C compiler that was used to compile your perl.) Therefore, you need
to install an extra module for this. It's called
Math::Symbolic::Custom::CCompiler. The speed-up for short formulas is only
about factor 2 due to the overhead of calling the Perl subroutine, but with
sufficiently complicated formulas, you should be able to get a boost up to
factor 100 or even 1000.
For raw execution speed, compile your trees to C code using
Math::Symbolic::Custom::CCompiler.
PROOF¶
In the last two sections, you were told a lot about the performance of two
important aspects of Math::Symbolic handling. But eventhough benchmarks are
very system dependent and have limited meaning to the general case, I'll
supply some proof for what I claimed. This is Perl 5.8.6 on linux-2.6.9,
x86_64 (Athlon64 3200+).
In the following tables,
value means evaluation using the
"value()" method,
eval means evaluation of Perl code as a
string,
sub is a hand-crafted Perl subroutine,
compiled is the
compiled Perl code,
c is the compiled C code. Evaluation of a very
simple function yields:
f(x) = x*2
Rate value eval sub compiled c
value 17322/s -- -68% -99% -99% -99%
eval 54652/s 215% -- -97% -97% -97%
sub 1603578/s 9157% 2834% -- -1% -16%
compiled 1616630/s 9233% 2858% 1% -- -15%
c 1907541/s 10912% 3390% 19% 18% --
We see that resorting to C is a waste in such simple cases. Compiling to a Perl
sub, however is a good idea.
f(x,y,z) = x*y*z+sin(x*y*z)-cos(x*y*z)
Rate value eval compiled sub c
value 1993/s -- -88% -100% -100% -100%
eval 16006/s 703% -- -97% -97% -99%
compiled 544217/s 27202% 3300% -- -2% -56%
sub 556737/s 27830% 3378% 2% -- -55%
c 1232362/s 61724% 7599% 126% 121% --
f(x,y,z,a,b) = x^y^tan(a*z)^(y*sin(x^(z*b)))
Rate value eval compiled sub c
value 2181/s -- -84% -99% -99% -100%
eval 13613/s 524% -- -97% -97% -98%
compiled 394945/s 18012% 2801% -- -5% -48%
sub 414328/s 18901% 2944% 5% -- -46%
c 763985/s 34936% 5512% 93% 84% --
These more involved examples show that using
value() can
become unpractical even if you're just doing a 2D plot with just a few
thousand points. The C routines aren't
that much faster, but they scale
much better.
Now for something different. Let's see whether I lied about the creation of
Math::Symbolic trees.
parse indicates that the parser was used to
create the object tree.
long indicates that the long syntax of the
constructor was used.
short... well.
proto means that the
objects were created from prototypes of the same class. For
ol_long and
ol_parse, I used the overloaded interface in conjunction with
constructors or parsing (a la "$x * 'y+z'").
f(x) = x
Rate parse long short ol_long ol_parse proto
parse 258/s -- -100% -100% -100% -100% -100%
long 95813/s 37102% -- -33% -34% -34% -35%
short 143359/s 55563% 50% -- -2% -2% -3%
ol_long 146022/s 56596% 52% 2% -- -0% -1%
ol_parse 146256/s 56687% 53% 2% 0% -- -1%
proto 147119/s 57023% 54% 3% 1% 1% --
Obviously, the parser gets blown to pieces, performance-wise. If you want to use
it, but cannot accept its tranquility, you can resort to
Math::SymbolicX::Inline and have the formulas parsed at compile time. (Which
isn't faster, but means that they are available when the program runs.) All
other methods are about the same speed. Note, that the ol_* tests are just the
same as
short here, because in case of "f(x) = x", you cannot
make use of the overloaded interface.
f(x,y,a,b) = x*y(a,b)
Rate parse ol_parse ol_long long proto short
parse 125/s -- -41% -41% -100% -100% -100%
ol_parse 213/s 70% -- -0% -99% -99% -99%
ol_long 213/s 70% 0% -- -99% -99% -99%
long 26180/s 20769% 12178% 12171% -- -6% -10%
proto 27836/s 22089% 12955% 12947% 6% -- -5%
short 29148/s 23135% 13570% 13562% 11% 5% --
f(x,a) = sin(x+a)*3-5*x
Rate parse ol_long ol_parse proto short
parse 41.2/s -- -83% -84% -100% -100%
ol_long 250/s 505% -- -0% -97% -98%
ol_parse 250/s 506% 0% -- -97% -98%
proto 9779/s 23611% 3819% 3810% -- -3%
short 10060/s 24291% 3932% 3922% 3% --
The picture changes when we're dealing with slightly longer functions. The
performance of the overloaded interface isn't that much better than the
parser. (Since it uses the parser to convert non-Math::Symbolic operands.)
ol_long should, however, be faster than
ol_parse. I'll refine
the benchmark somewhen. The three other construction methods are still about
the same speed. I omitted the long version in the last benchmark because the
typing work involved was unnerving.
SEE ALSO¶
New versions of this module can be found on
http://steffen-mueller.net or CPAN.
The module development takes place on Sourceforge at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/math-symbolic/
The following modules come with this distribution:
Math::Symbolic::ExportConstants, Math::Symbolic::AuxFunctions
Math::Symbolic::Base, Math::Symbolic::Operator, Math::Symbolic::Constant,
Math::Symbolic::Variable
Math::Symbolic::Custom, Math::Symbolic::Custom::Base,
Math::Symbolic::Custom::DefaultTests, Math::Symbolic::Custom::DefaultMods
Math::Symbolic::Custom::DefaultDumpers
Math::Symbolic::Derivative, Math::Symbolic::MiscCalculus,
Math::Symbolic::VectorCalculus, Math::Symbolic::MiscAlgebra
Math::Symbolic::Parser, Math::Symbolic::Parser::Precompiled,
Math::Symbolic::Compiler
The following modules are extensions on CPAN that do not come with this
distribution in order to keep the distribution size reasonable.
Math::SymbolicX::Inline - (Inlined Math::Symbolic functions)
Math::Symbolic::Custom::CCompiler (Compile Math::Symbolic trees to C for speed
or for use in C code)
Math::SymbolicX::BigNum (Big number support for the Math::Symbolic parser)
Math::SymbolicX::Complex (Complex number support for the Math::Symbolic parser)
Math::Symbolic::Custom::Contains (Find subtrees in Math::Symbolic expressions)
Math::SymbolicX::ParserExtensionFactory (Generate parser extensions for the
Math::Symbolic parser)
Math::Symbolic::Custom::ErrorPropagation (Calculate Gaussian Error Propagation)
Math::SymbolicX::Statistics::Distributions (Statistical Distributions as
Math::Symbolic functions)
Math::SymbolicX::NoSimplification (Turns off Math::Symbolic simplifications)
AUTHOR¶
Please send feedback, bug reports, and support requests to the Math::Symbolic
support mailing list: math-symbolic-support at lists dot sourceforge dot net.
Please consider letting us know how you use Math::Symbolic. Thank you.
If you're interested in helping with the development or extending the module's
functionality, please contact the developers' mailing list:
math-symbolic-develop at lists dot sourceforge dot net.
List of contributors:
Steffen MXller, smueller at cpan dot org
Stray Toaster, mwk at users dot sourceforge dot net
Oliver EbenhXh
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE¶
Copyright (C) 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013 by
Steffen Mueller
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.6.1 or, at your option,
any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.