Re: [igraph] igraph library

[Tamas Nepusz]

Dear Robin,

> Has anyone successfully called the igraph routines from a Pascal  
> source? I write network formation simulations in Pascal, and it  
> would be nice to use the iGraph routines for calculating statistics.  
> I know this is possible in principle, but it seems (like so many  
> things that are possible in principle) it is not quite  
> straightforward in practice. Any experience that you could share  
> would be appreciated.
This would require the development of an interface between igraph and  
Pascal (similar to the ones that are available for R, Python and Ruby  
so far). I think these are called "packages" in FreePascal  
terminology. Based on my experience on developing the Python  
interface, I can say that this is a tedious process. If you are using  
FreePascal, here is a document that explains how to access C code from  
FreePascal:

ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/docs-pdf/CinFreePascal.pdf

This may or may not be of some use to you -- as for me, I don't have  
experience with Pascal and I think that the conversion between  
igraph_t and an equivalent Pascal type is not straightforward at all.  
You might try to ask for help on the FreePascal mailing lists about  
how to develop a FreePascal package for a C library - I think it is  
possible, since there are a few such packages listed at http://www.freepascal.org/packages/ 
 . But it will take a lot of time to cover the complete igraph API.

Another possibility is to write the igraph-related things in Python,  
C, R or Ruby and then call the appropriate compiled executable from  
your Pascal program. (Of course you'll have to take care about  
exporting the data in some format that igraph can read from Python, R,  
C or Ruby, and you'll also have to convert the output of the  
executable back to a format that your program can digest).

--
T.