Re: st: Mata void functions and pointers

[jpitblado@stata.com (Jeff Pitblado, StataCorp LP)]

Matthew Baker <matthew.baker@hunter.cuny.edu> is working with pointers in 
Mata.  Originally he wrote:

> I have a problem in which I am trying to populate the elements of
> a pointer with the results of a function. The problem is, the function
> is void and returns its results through an argument, which makes
> getting results into a pointer nontransparent. As a simple example,
> consider the following:
> (example omitted)

Brendan Halpin <brendan.halpin@ul.ie> replied with a suggestion for Matthew's
specific, but it did not address Mathew's general need, so Mathew gave us more
information:

> I should have been more clear! I would certainly prefer to use a
> vector to collect the elements, but the objects I'm collecting are of
> unknown dimension which is not known in advance, so perhaps I should
> have used an example like:
> 
> /* Begin example */
> clear all
> mata
> void example(A,B,Ab) Ab=J(A+round(3*runiform(1,1)),B,1)
> P=J(3,1,NULL)
> for (i=1;i<=3;i++) {
> 	example(i,i,Ab=.)
> 	Ab
> 	P[i]=&Ab
> 				   }
> 
> /* display results */
> 
> for (i=1;i<=3;i++) *P[i]
> end
> /* end example */
> 
> I have thought about trying to readjust the dimensions of the vector
> every time it is a little different, but this seems kind of clumsy and
> I was hoping for a better alternative.

Mathew can preallocate each element of the P vector with an address to it's
own copy of a default Mata object, then pass that object to his 'example()'
function.  Here is how that would work with Mathew's example above:

***** BEGIN:
clear all
mata:
void example(A,B,Ab) Ab=J(A+round(3*runiform(1,1)),B,1)
P=J(3,1,NULL)
for (i=1;i<=3;i++) {
	P[i] = &J(0,0,.)		// PREALLOCATION
	example(i,i,*P[i])
	*P[i]
}                                  

/* display results */

for (i=1;i<=3;i++) *P[i]
end
***** END:

--Jeff
jpitblado@stata.com
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