Home/ Questions/Q 840889
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-15T05:42:06+00:00

This question is probably quite different from what you are used to reading here

  • 0

This question is probably quite different from what you are used to reading here – I hope it can provide a fun challenge.

Essentially I have an algorithm that uses 5(or more) variables to compute a single value, called outcome. Now I have to implement this algorithm on an embedded device which has no memory limitations, but has very harsh processing constraints.

Because of this, I would like to run a calculation engine which computes outcome for, say, 20 different values of each variable and stores this information in a file. You may think of this as a 5(or more)-dimensional matrix or 5(or more)-dimensional array, each dimension being 20 entries long.

In any modern language, filling this array is as simple as having 5(or more) nested for loops. The tricky part is that I need to dump these values into a file that can then be placed onto the embedded device so that the device can use it as a lookup table.

The questions now, are:

  1. What format(s) might be acceptable
    for storing the data?
  2. What programs (MATLAB, C#, etc)
    might be best suited to compute the
    data?
  3. C# must be used to import the data
    on the device – is this possible
    given your answer to #1?

Edit:
Is it possible to read from my lookup table file without reading the entire file into memory? Can you explain how that might be done in C#?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I’ll comment on 1 and 3 as well. It may be preferable to use a fixed width output file rather than a CSV. This may take up more or less space than a CSV, depending on the output numbers. However, it tends to work well for lookup tables, as figuring out where to look in a fixed width data file can be done without reading the entire file. This is usually important for a lookup table.

    Fixed width data, as with CSV, is trivial to read and write. Some math-oriented languages might offer poor string and binary manipulation functionality, but it should be really easy to convert the data to fixed width during the import step regardless.

    Number 2 is harder to answer, particularly without knowing what kind of algorithm you are computing. Matlab and similar programs tend to be great about certain types of computations and often have a lot of stuff built in to make it easier. That said, a lot of the math stuff that is built into such languages is available for other languages in the form of libraries.

    • 0