samer@0: *** Prolog Matlab interface
samer@0: ***
samer@0: *** Authors: 
samer@0: ***    Samer Abdallah
samer@0: ***    Centre for Digital Music, 
samer@0: ***    Queen Mary, University of London
samer@0: ***
samer@0: ***    Christophe Rhodes
samer@0: ***    Centre for Computational Creativity
samer@0: ***    Goldsmiths College, University of London
samer@0: ***
samer@0: *** Dec 2004--Nov 2006
samer@0: 
samer@0: 
samer@37: NB. This repository is deprecated. Code is now maintained on GitHub at
samer@37: 	https://github.com/samer--/plml
samer@37: 
samer@0: PLML is a foreign interface that enables Matlab to be used as a computational
samer@0: engine from within SWI Prolog. The basic idea is that instead of using
samer@0: the standard is/2 operator to evaluate a certain class of terms, we can
samer@0: use the ===/2 operator to get Matlab to evaluate a (much richer) class of
samer@0: terms, eg 
samer@0: 
samer@0: 	?- float(A)===trace(eye(3)).
samer@0: 
samer@0: 	A = 3.0
samer@0: 
samer@0: We can also get Matlab to perform actions with side effects, like
samer@0: making sounds and graphics; obviously these do not fit into the declartive
samer@0: semantics of Prolog and have to be dealt with under the procedural semantics.
samer@0: If you want to execute a Matlab command in an imperative way and see the
samer@0: textual output, use the ??/1 operator, eg
samer@0: 
samer@0: 	?- ??disp(`hello).
samer@0: 
samer@0: 	>> hello
samer@0: 
samer@0: 
samer@0: The interface works by using the Matlab Engine API, which starts up a Matlab
samer@0: process on the end of a pipe. The Matlab process can be on another machine,
samer@0: and multiple Matlab engines can be started on the same or different machines.
samer@0: Matlab expressions are sent down the pipe and executed. Matlab's textual
samer@0: output comes back through the pipe. In addition, Matlab variables can be
samer@0: transferred directly between the Matlab engine's memory space and SWI's
samer@0: memory space.
samer@0: 
samer@0: See README for further details.
samer@0: 
samer@0: 
samer@0: RELEASE NOTES for version 0.2
samer@0: 
samer@0: 	- Added option to enable Matlab's JVM
samer@0: 	- Now closing Matlab engines properly at halt
samer@0: 	- Added support for valid but non-evaluable expressions
samer@0: 	- Fixed bug when returning integers from Matlab
samer@0: 	- Errors in user's Matlab functions now generate mlerror(_,_) expections
samer@0: