Problem Specification

To keep NetSolve as general as possible, we need to find a formal way of describing a problem. Such a description must be carefully chosen, since it will affect the ability to interface NetSolve with arbitrary software.

A problem is defined as a 3-tuple: < name, inputs, outputs >,

where

• name is a character string containing the name of the problem
• inputs is a list of input objects
• outputs is a list of output objects

An object is itself described as follows: < object, data>,

where object can be 'MATRIX', 'VECTOR' or 'SCALAR' and data can be any of the standard FORTRAN data types.

This description has proved to be sufficient to interface NetSolve with numerous software packages. NetSolve is still at an early stage of development and is likely to undergo modifications in the future.