Thanks Bruce for your very helpful reply! The reason for my question was indeed consistency, e.g. ensuring figure captions stay up to date with what the figures show when changing parameters. Thinking more about it, the second solution you mention seems to be a better option, though - I can simply define the parameters in an external file and read it from both the PDF solver and ConTeXt to ensure consistency. Thanks for mentioning it! Thank you also for mentioning \executesystemcommand, which I was not aware of! Best regards, Florent Le dim. 15 sept. 2024 à 21:31, Bruce Horrocks a écrit :

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On 14 Sep 2024, at 21:46, Florent Michel wrote:

TL;DR: Could building LuaMetaTeX with the `-fPIC` flag for the Lua library have negative consequences? Is there a better way to be able to call external C functions from ConTeXt?

This seems a bit drastic. Why can’t you achieve what you want to achieve by using other methods?

For example you could setup a workflow whereby you pre-calculate your DE’s and format the results to include as input files. Or you could pre-calculate your DEs and plot them using one of any number of plotting programs and include the plots as TIFFs or PNGs.

If you’re familiar with compiling C code using tools like `make` then why not use a makefile to control the production of your DE plots and your ConTeXt document to ensure that everything is consistent?

If you absolutely must run the DE calculations as the ConTeXt document is processed then there is \executesystemcommand.

— Bruce Horrocks Hampshire, UK

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Am 16.09.24 um 12:59 schrieb Bruce Horrocks:

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On 15 Sep 2024, at 22:11, Florent Michel wrote:

Thanks Bruce for your very helpful reply!

The reason for my question was indeed consistency, e.g. ensuring figure captions stay up to date with what the figures show when changing parameters. Thinking more about it, the second solution you mention seems to be a better option, though - I can simply define the parameters in an external file and read it from both the PDF solver and ConTeXt to ensure consistency. Thanks for mentioning it!

Thank you also for mentioning \executesystemcommand, which I was not aware of!

Another option might be to use a marker such as

% DE_figure_here param1 param2 param3

in your ConTeXt source and then use 'awk' or another Unix text pre-processor to scan through for these, run the appropriate DE calculation, plot the graph and generate the appropriate \placefigure command to go in its place.

Bonus marks if it can automatically generate the caption based on the parameters! But if not, the marker can always follow the \placefigure macro e.g.

\placefigure {This is a DE showing something and something else} % DE_figure_here param1 param2 param3

so the awk code only needs to insert the image file name.

Note I’ve deliberately omitted the braces from the bit to be substituted so that you need to generate them in the awk. That way, if you forget to process, you’ll get an error not a missing image.

That sounds needlessly convoluted to me. I’d use Aditya’s filter module to call external programs, it also does caching, i.e. if the parameters don’t change, it won’t waste processing time. https://github.com/adityam/filter Hraban

Thanks again Bruce! I had not thought about the possibility of parsing comments in the tex file from an external tool, but that sounds like a very good option. I like the fact that it would allow the tex file to contain all the information needed to keep track of what is represented without having to duplicate the parameter values. And since my specific workflow is indeed already convoluted it will not really add extra complexity. Thanks also Henning for mentioning the filter module! I'll have a closer look into how I could use it - and it will certainly come useful, either for this project or a future one! Best regards, Florent Le lun. 16 sept. 2024 à 13:08, Bruce Horrocks a écrit :

On 16 Sep 2024, at 12:15, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:

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Am 16.09.24 um 12:59 schrieb Bruce Horrocks:

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On 15 Sep 2024, at 22:11, Florent Michel

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Thanks Bruce for your very helpful reply!

The reason for my question was indeed consistency, e.g. ensuring

...

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...

Thank you also for mentioning \executesystemcommand, which I was not

aware of! Another option might be to use a marker such as % DE_figure_here param1 param2 param3 in your ConTeXt source and then use 'awk' or another Unix text

...

...

Bonus marks if it can automatically generate the caption based on the

wrote: figure captions stay up to date with what the figures show when changing parameters. Thinking more about it, the second solution you mention seems to be a better option, though - I can simply define the parameters in an external file and read it from both the PDF solver and ConTeXt to ensure consistency. Thanks for mentioning it! pre-processor to scan through for these, run the appropriate DE calculation, plot the graph and generate the appropriate \placefigure command to go in its place. parameters! But if not, the marker can always follow the \placefigure macro e.g.

...

...

\placefigure {This is a DE showing something and something else} % DE_figure_here param1 param2 param3 so the awk code only needs to insert the image file name. Note I’ve deliberately omitted the braces from the bit to be substituted so that you need to generate them in the awk. That way, if you forget to process, you’ll get an error not a missing image.

That sounds needlessly convoluted to me. I’d use Aditya’s filter module to call external programs, it also does caching, i.e. if the parameters don’t change, it won’t waste processing time.

https://github.com/adityam/filter

I think Florent already has a situation that can be described as convoluted. Whether this is more so only he can say.

I didn’t suggest the filter module to start with because it filters a buffer through an external command which isn’t Florent’s use-case (which is just the ability to call an external command). However I see, buried deeply in the docs, under the heading "Special use case: \write18 with caching” there is the ability to call a single command which would work.

Someone with better knowledge of the macro would need to explain how to adapt the ’size’ key to Florent’s usage to enable the caching.

Regards, — Bruce Horrocks Hampshire, UK

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