Getting Started with Julia

Ivo Balbaert

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781783284801
• Topic: Informatique
• Subtopic: Traitement des données

About This Book

• Work with Julia in a multi-core, distributed, and networked environment
• Learn the techniques to create blazingly fast programs with Julia
• The book walks you through various practical examples to get to grips with Julia

Who This Book Is For

This book is for you if you are a data scientist or working on any technical or scientific computation projects. The book assumes you have a basic working knowledge of high-level dynamic languages such as MATLAB, R, Python, or Ruby.

Getting Started with Julia

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Table of Contents

Getting Started with Julia

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

The Rationale for Julia

The scope of Julia

Julia's place among the other programming languages

A comparison with other languages for the data scientist

MATLAB

R

Python

Useful links

Summary

1. Installing the Julia Platform

Installing Julia

Windows version – usable from Windows XP SP2 onwards

Ubuntu version

OS X

Building from source

Working with Julia's shell

Startup options and Julia scripts

Packages

Adding a new package

Installing and working with Julia Studio

Installing and working with IJulia

Installing Sublime-IJulia

Installing Juno

Other editors and IDEs

How Julia works

Summary

2. Variables, Types, and Operations

Variables, naming conventions, and comments

Types

Integers

Floating point numbers

Elementary mathematical functions and operations

Rational and complex numbers

Characters

Strings

Formatting numbers and strings

Regular expressions

Ranges and arrays

Other ways to create arrays

Some common functions for arrays

How to convert an array of chars to a string

Dates and times

Scope and constants

Summary

3. Functions

Defining functions

Optional and keyword arguments

Anonymous functions

First-class functions and closures

Recursive functions

Map, filter, and list comprehensions

Generic functions and multiple dispatch

Summary

4. Control Flow

Conditional evaluation

Repeated evaluation

The for loop

The while loop

The break statement

The continue statement

Exception handling

Scope revisited

Tasks

Summary

5. Collection Types

Matrices

Tuples

Dictionaries

Keys and values – looping

Sets

Making a set of tuples

Example project – word frequency

Summary

6. More on Types, Methods, and Modules

Type annotations and conversions

Type conversions and promotions

The type hierarchy – subtypes and supertypes

Concrete and abstract types

User-defined and composite types

When are two values or objects equal or identical?

Multiple dispatch example

Types and collections – inner constructors

Type unions

Parametric types and methods

Standard modules and paths

Summary

7. Metaprogramming in Julia

Expressions and symbols

Eval and interpolation

Defining macros

Built-in macros

Testing

Debugging

Benchmarking

Starting a task

Reflection capabilities

Summary

8. I/O, Networking, and Parallel Computing

Basic input and output

Working with files

Reading and writing CSV files

Using DataFrames

Other file formats

Working with TCP sockets and servers

Interacting with databases

Parallel operations and computing

Creating processes

Using low-level communications

Parallel loops and maps

Distributed arrays

Summary

9. Running External Programs

Running shell commands

Interpolation

Pipelining

Calling C and FORTRAN

Calling Python

Performance tips

Tools to use

Summary

10. The Standard Library and Packages

Digging deeper into the standard library

Julia's package manager

Installing and updating packages

Publishing a package

Graphics in Julia

Using Gadfly on data

Summary

A. List of Macros and Packages

Macros

List of packages

Index

Getting Started with Julia

Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: February 2015

Production reference: 1200215

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78328-479-5

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author

Ivo Balbaert

Reviewers

Pascal Bugnion

Michael Otte

Dustin E. Stansbury

Commissioning Editor

Kevin Colaco

Acquisition Editor

Kevin Colaco

Content Development Editor

Neeshma Ramakrishnan

Technical Editors

Mrunmayee Patil

Shali Sasidharan

Copy Editor

Rashmi...