A Smart Interface for Numerical Software
Abstract:
The paper describes a smart interface that makes numerical libraries
easy to use and reliable by exploiting mathematical theory, symbolic
algebra, and descriptions of the input/output formats of numerical
subroutines. The interface accepts a high-level problem description,
selects the appropriate numerical subroutine, programs the problem in
subroutine format, runs the program, corrects for numerical errors and
special conditions, and returns the output in a high-level format. The
current interface manages a root finder, a continuation package, an
ordinary differential equation integrator, and a Lyapunov exponent
calculator. I describe these functions and illustrate their use in a
program that analyzes ordinary differential equations.