Ruby equivalents to SciPy, NumPy

[Alexander Jesner]

Hello!

I want to use Ruby to do some scientific computing for university and
was wondering, if there are any gems or language intern features that
could help me to accomplish this tasks.

Some of my colleagues use Python and they can use NumPy or orther SciPy
features to do computations and produce graphic output just like in MATLAB.
Are there any equivalents for Ruby?

Regards,
Alex

 

[Ralf Mueller]

Hello!

I want to use Ruby to do some scientific computing for university and
was wondering, if there are any gems or language intern features that
could help me to accomplish this tasks.

Some of my colleagues use Python and they can use NumPy or orther SciPy
features to do computations and produce graphic output just like in MATLAB.
Are there any equivalents for Ruby?

Hi Alexander,
I have quite good experience with the bindings to Gnu Scientific Library
(GSL: http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/manual/html_node/, rb-gsl:
http://rb-gsl.rubyforge.org/). there is also another bindings package:
http://ruby-gsl.sourceforge.net/

As you may know, narray (http://narray.rubyforge.org/SPEC.en) is a fast
multidimensional array implementation, and it is interoperable with
rb-gsl (http://rb-gsl.rubyforge.org/narray.html). If you install
'plotutils' and 'gnuplot' (+ its ruby gem), you will be able to use
GSL's plotting facilities (http://rb-gsl.rubyforge.org/vector.html#3.17,
graph -> plotutils, plot -> gnuplot). After all, it felt like using
matlab to me. Having a ruby as a fully features language by your side
makes it even more powerfull.

If you're looking for statistical analysis, rsruby
(http://rubyforge.org/projects/rsruby/), ruby bindings to R.

Another important issue is IO. If you have CSV-like files, GSL can read
the directly, or you can let ruby to that. If you have netcdf
(http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/,
http://ruby.gfd-dennou.org/products/ruby-netcdf/) , grib
(http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/ruby-grib/) or hdf5
(http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/), you have to look for libraries.


best regards
ralf