Introduction to MathLink
In many cases, you will find it convenient to communicate with external programs at a high level, and to exchange structured data with them.
On almost all computer systems,
Mathematica supports the
MathLink communication standard, which allows higher-level communication between
Mathematica and external programs. In order to use
MathLink, an external program has to include some special source code and a
MathLink library, which are usually distributed with
Mathematica.
MathLink allows external programs both to call
Mathematica, and to be called by
Mathematica. "
MathLink and External Program Communication" discusses some of the details of
MathLink. By using
MathLink, you can, for example, treat
Mathematica essentially like a subroutine embedded inside an external program. Or you can create a front end that implements your own user interface, and communicates with the
Mathematica kernel via
MathLink.
You can also use
MathLink to let
Mathematica call individual functions inside an external program. As described in "
MathLink and External Program Communication", you can set up a
MathLink template file to specify how particular functions in
Mathematica should call functions inside your external program. From the
MathLink template file, you can generate source code to include in your program. Then when you start your program, the appropriate
Mathematica definitions are automatically made, and when you call a particular
Mathematica function, code in your external program is executed.
| Install["command"] | start an external program and install Mathematica definitions to call functions it contains |
| Uninstall[link] | terminate an external program and uninstall definitions for functions in it |
Calling functions in external programs.
This starts the external program simul, and installs Mathematica definitions to call various functions in it.
| Out[1]= |  |
|
Here is a usage message for a function that was installed in Mathematica to call a function in the external program. |
When you call this function, it executes code in the external program.
| Out[3]= |  |
|
This terminates the simul program.
| Out[4]= |  |
|
You can use
MathLink to communicate with many types of programs, including with
Mathematica itself. There are versions of the
MathLink library for a variety of common programming languages. The
J/Link system provides a standard way to integrate
Mathematica with Java, based on
MathLink. With
J/Link you can take any Java class, and immediately make its methods accessible as functions in
Mathematica.
