Many package interfaces expect vectors, e.g. Optim.jl and DifferentialEquations.jl.
But sometimes you want to work with more complicated objects. This provides simple functionality for packing and unpacking Julia objects into vectors.
The @pack! macro packs Julia objects into vectors:
using PackVec
vec = zeros(1 + 2 + 4 + 10)
a = 1.0
b = [2.0, 3.0]
c = [4.0 5.0; 6.0 7.0]
d = UpperTriangular(ones(4,4)) # packs into 10 elements
@pack!(vec, a, b, c, d)
To unpack, use @unpack!: mutable objects (such as arrays) should be predefined, and immutable ones specified with a type specifier:
b = zeros(2)
c = zeros(2,2)
d = UpperTriangular(zeros(4,4))
@unpack!(vec, a::Real, b, c, d)
Mutable objects can be directly defined in the macro
@unpack!(vec, a::Real, b=zeros(2), c=zeros(2,2), d=UpperTriangular(4,4))
StaticArrays.jl is also supported:
@unpack!(vec, a::SVector{4}, b::SMatrix{3,3})
To extend this to more Julia objects, add methods to the pack! and unpack or unpack! functions. See the help for more details.