In Octave, when some values given to the sparse() function are numerically
zero, then the nzmax of the generated sparse matrix is shrinked accordingly;
while under MATLAB, the nzmax is the length of the vector of values, zeros
included.
The check at the top of
DynamicModelMFile::unpackSparseMatrixAndCopyIntoTwoDMatData() would then fail
under Octave if some higher-derivatives had an element which is symbolically
non-zero but numerically zero.
We therefore relax the check, and accordingly adapt the code that handles
numerical zeros.
This bug was uncovered by tests/pruning/AnSchorfheide_pruned_state_space.mod,
which was failing under Octave.
Because at some point throwing exceptions from MEX files (with mexErrMsgTxt())
was not working under Windows 64-bit, we had designed a workaround to avoid
using exceptions.
Most MEX files were returning an error code as their first (or sometimes last)
argument, and that code would have to be checked from the MATLAB code.
Since this workaround is no longer needed, this commit removes it. As a
consequence, the interface of many MEX files is modified.
For some background, see https://www.dynare.org/pipermail/dev/2010-September/000895.html
It applies the approximated policy function to a set of particles, using
Dynare++ routines.
There is support for parallelization, using Dynare++ multithreading
model (itself based on C++11 threads; we don’t use OpenMP because it is
incompatible with MKL). For the time being, default to a single thread. This
should be later refined through empirical testing.
This MEX solves nonlinear systems of equations using a trust region algorithm.
The problem is subdivided in smaller problems by doing a block
triangularisation of the Jacobian at the guess value, using the
Dulmage-Mendelsohn algorithm.
The interface of the MEX is simply:
[x, info] = block_trust_region(f, guess_value);
Where f is either a function handle or a string designating a function.
f must take one argument (the evaluation point), and return either one or two
arguments (the residuals and, optionally, the Jacobian).
On success, info=0; on failure, info=1.
The changes in 8065e9d439 were not working as
intended, because AC_CHECK_PROG expect values and not actions. Hence
AC_MSG_ERROR was not properly executed.
By the way, simplify some test conditions using && instead of if/then/fi
blocks.
The logic of the dynSparseMatrix::Sparse_substract_SA_SB() routine was
incorrect.
In some cases, it would read past the last nonzero elements of the A matrix,
and consequently write past the number of allocated nonzero elements of the C
matrix.
This would lead to crashes and, probably, to wrong results under certain
circumstances.
Closes: #1652
In particular, if either MATLAB or Octave is missing, one needs to pass either
--disable-matlab or --disable-octave.
Moreover, several new configure flags have been introduced for disabling some
components:
--disable-doc
--disable-dynare++
--disable-mex-dynare++
--disable-mex-ms-sbvar
--disable-mex-kalman-steady-state
The MEX files are built out-of-tree (because we want to do them in parallel).
This would create a potential race condition if several builds want to create
the symlinks under mex/matlab/ or mex/octave/.
The solution is to disable those symlinks for out-of-tree builds.
The scripts are based the former “dynare-build” project. They have been
overhauled and simplified.
Building a Windows package (both installer and zip archive) is as easy as
running “make -C windows” (provided the right Debian packages are installed,
use the “windows/install-packages.sh” script for that purpose).
The layout of MEX files for Octave in the package has been
changed (mex/octave/win32/ and mex/octave/win64/ instead of mex/octave32/ and
mex/octave/), for consistency with MATLAB MEX.
It constructs the stacked residuals and jacobian of the perfect foresight
problem.
It is an almost perfect replacement for the perfect_foresight_problem.m
routine, while being much more efficient.
Note however that the DLL never return complex numbers (it instead puts NaNs at
the place where there would have been complex). This may create problems for
some MOD files; the algorithms will need to be adapted to use a more
line-search method.