Re: histograms

[Craig P Prescott <prescott at phys dot ufl dot edu>]

Hi;

I read Simon Piccardi's READMEs in his histfix patch, and would be
very excited to see ntuple support in the GSL.

Speaking of histograms, I've got a question or two, and maybe a couple
ideas.

I want to have many histograms in the same file, which I may want to
read in again with another (or the same) GSL-aware app.  What do
developers using the GSL do to accomplish this?  It seems the
developer must write their own header for each histogram so you know
what kind of histogram it is and what its dimensions are.  Should the
GSL *_fread/fwrite *_fprintf/fscanf take care of this for us?

Similarly, it would be nice to be able to give a histogram a title, so
when we read it back in we know something about it.  Maybe some axis
labels, too.  And an identifier of some kind would also be great;
i.e., say I only want to read in a certain histogram or certain set of
them.  Maybe some other metadata, too.

Finally, I am wondering about a portable binary data format for GSL
histograms.  Is something like that envisioned to be part of the GSL?

I realize that these kinds of things might be thought to be outside
the scope of the GSL, or just plain bloat.  But I am thinking that
having the GSL provide some of this functionality might be a "Good
Thing", as in less very similar code in GSL apps developed by
different people.  And if there was an "official" GSL portable binary
format, I can imagine powerful data analysis and visualization tools
supporting it, and even being built around the entire GSL.

Anyway, I'm rambling.  I'm guessing all this has been thought about
before, and I am just curious about the GSL developer's thoughts on
the subject.

I very much enjoy using the GSL in my project, and I'd like to thank
the developers of it for putting in the hard work to make such a
powerful toolkit.

Cheers,
Craig
---
Craig Prescott                                (352) 846-3145 (Phone)
2011 New Physics Building                     (352) 392-8863 (Fax)
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611  prescott@phys.ufl.edu