CIFER®-MATLAB Interfaces: Development and ... - Cal Poly

egions of low coherence where less weight would be assigned to the results, regardless of small
numeric error. The short-term solution was to document the existence of the issue as a warning to
users.
3.1.2.2 Retaining Structure of Code
A major concern of the project was to create new code that would be relatively easy to maintain
and modify. In order for the functions created for the MATLAB-CIFER ®
interface to be
maintainable by CIFER ® lead programmers, the code was written to mimic existing Fortran code
wherever possible. In other cases, such as the MATLAB M-files, code was made uniform both in
structure and in naming conventions so as to facilitate both ease of use and ease of maintenance.
Several specific methods were employed in this endeavor. First, in dealing with the Fortran mex
files, the names of variables transferring data from MATLAB into the CIFER ® common blocks
were made identical to the common block variables but with an ‘x’ appended on the end. This
notation would allow easy identification of variables by programmers already familiar with the
old Fortran code. Second, the variables were renamed when they were passed into the MATLAB
workspace because the Fortran variables have names suited to programming that may not be
meaningful to an engineering user. Last, the various Makefiles which create the Fortran mex files
were condensed and grouped according to the utilities and programs they created. Thus, all the
functions that facilitate FRESPID use are created using a single Makefile.
CIFER ® programs and utilities vary slightly in their method of interfacing with the user, as
described in Chapter 2. Some use a screen interface where the user fills in fields and advances
using the function keys. When the end of the screens is reached, the screen programs may call
additional programs that send information to be processed by CIFER ® . Other programs use a
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