M-files to C++ (some tips)

[John W. Eaton]

On  2-Dec-1998, Frederik Barth <address@hidden> wrote:

| Recently, I asked about ways to convert Matlab (Octave) files to C++
| (Thanks to all who gave me some advise!), and there was also a thread 
| on C-libraries for matrix manipulation.
| 
| Someone kindly pointed me to Matcom from Mathtools. I downloaded
| the demo, but the software is full of bugs and crashes. It doesn't work 
| with VC 5 'as seen on TV' either. An unstable program for a lot of 
| money.

Please note that it is not legal to use Matcom to translate code from
Octave that is distributed under the terms of the GPL and then link it
with the Mathtools' proprietary run-time library.

| However, I finally found some older versions on some FTP servers,
| they include the source code and seem to do the job, but are also
| great for Matlab (Octave)-like C++ programming. 
| 
| You can locate the files using http://ftpsearch.ntnu.no/ftpsearch
| The filenames are:
| matcom15.zip - freeware (~1MB)
| matcom20.zip - shareware (~800kB)
| 
| The source code is not really readable, but at least matcom15
| compiles just fine under VC++ 5/Win98. Matcom20 didn't
| compile, but can use external BLAS implementations under
| UNIX.

The only source for Matcom that I ever saw was encoded in some way to
make it unreadable and impossible to modify.  Perhaps it was
`freeware' in some sense, but I certainly wouldn't lump it in the same
group as other freely redistributable software like Octave, Emacs, or
Linux.

I think it would be useful to have a free Octave to C++ translator.
If anyone is interested in working on or funding such a project,
please contact me.

Thanks,

jwe