CODEWITHSUNDEEP
arrayspointersvariablesjuliavariable-assignment
Nate
Nate

Reputation: 211

How do I get my Julia code to assign the scalar value of a variable to an array without changing it as they variable mutates later on?

For my simulation, I have a field that is called particle.current_theta. When this field is a single variable, I assign it a new value that is called just "theta" on my line 177. This theta has its value changed further down within my code, on lines 202 and 206. I want what I have printed in my terminal as tree_theta and current_theta to be very similar to each other but not quite identical (This part of the code basically detects whether or not my particle is entering or exiting a region). You can see all this in the image below: enter image description here

Now, I need to make the field I have called particle.current_theta a [1x1] array, and assign the entry in my [1x1] array the "theta" value, as usual. However, simply making particle.current_theta a [1x1] array radically changes its value within the terminal and causes my simulation to break. You can see how the value for particle.theta (printed in terminal as "current theta") is now drastically different in the code below: enter image description here I suspect that making particle.currenttheta an array is making it mutate whenever theta is changed in some of those lines below. How do I prevent that from happening, and get results that are identical to using just a single variable. To be precise, I want particle.current_theta to save the numerical information that theta has at line 177 of code but not be changed afterwards. Because of the large size of my code now and the function calls within function calls, it would be infeasible for me to be able to create a mwe that replicates this issue. However, all help and advice is appreciated, and I will respond to and clarify any questions that people may have.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 250

Answers (1)

Sundar R
Sundar R

Reputation: 14735

If theta is a scalar (and it appears to be), then it's unlikely that changing its value is what is changing particle.currenttheta. What is more likely is that you're passing the currenttheta to some function, and changing the value of the passed argument inside the function. Julia arrays are passed to functions "by reference", in the sense that a copy is not made, and instead any changes made inside the function change the original array. When you had currenttheta as a scalar (which are passed "by value" instead), when you pass that to a function, changes made inside the function do not affect the original currenttheta's value.

So if you're passing currenttheta to a function somewhere and don't want it to be modified inside the function, pass copy(particle.currenttheta) in that call instead.

If you're not doing that, or that doesn't solve the problem, we need more of the code to figure out where the change might actually be happening. If not the whole of it, at least the parts that handle currenttheta, and the parts that print it. (Also, it would massively help with clarity if you would use consistent names in the output. Sometimes it's treetheta and current theta, other times it's theta and particle.currentheta, and it's not clear where these are being printed from and what the difference - if any - is.)

Upvotes: 1

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