% $OpenXM: OpenXM/doc/ascm2001p/openxm-clients.tex,v 1.2 2001/06/20 05:42:47 takayama Exp $

\section{OpenXM Clients}    

\subsection{Risa/Asir}

Risa/Asir provides a launcher {\tt ox\_launch}
to invoke an OpenXM server and to set up the
communication between the server and itself.
%Fundamental operations on OpenXM servers are 
%exchange of OX data and sending of stack machine commands.
As a client, Asir provides the following functions
to execute primitive operations:
{\tt ox\_push\_cmo()} for pushing data,
{\tt ox\_push\_cmd()} for sending a stack machine command
and {\tt ox\_get()} for receiving data from a stream.
Some operations including the reset operation {\tt ox\_reset()} 
are implemented by combining these primitives.
%
%Among them, frequently used ones are
%provided as built-in functions. We show some of them.
%
%\begin{itemize}
%\item {\tt ox\_pop\_cmo()}
%
%It requests a server to send data on the stack to the stream, then
%it receives the data from the stream.
%
%\item {\tt ox\_cmo\_rpc()}
%
%After pushing the name of a function, arguments and the number of the
%arguments to the stack of a server, it requests the server to execute
%the function. It does not wait the termination of the function call.
%
%\item {\tt ox\_reset()}
%
%After sending {\tt SM\_control\_reset\_connection} to a control server,
%it completes the operations stated in Section \ref{control}.
%\end{itemize}
Furthermore {\tt ox\_select()} is provided to detect if streams are ready for
reading.  It is used to avoid blocking on read operations.
%% It is implemented by the {\tt select()} system call and is used
%% to avoid blocking on read operations.

\subsection{Mathematica}

We provide an OpenXM client {\tt math2ox} written as an external module
for Mathematica.  
The module {\tt math2ox} communicates with Mathematica by MathLink and
with any OpenXM server by the OpenXM protocol.  
By using the module {\tt math2ox},
we can call OpenXM servers from Mathematica;
%here is a demonstration of a computation of the de Rham cohomology groups
%of ${\bf C}^2 \setminus V(x^3-y^2)$ from Mathematica.
%\begin{verbatim}
%In[1]:= Install["math2ox"]
%In[2]:= OxStart["../lib/sm1/bin/ox_sm1_forAsir"]
%In[3]:= OxExecute[" [(x^3-y^2) (x,y)] deRham "]
%In[4]:= OxPopString[]
%Out[4]=  [ 1 , 1 , 0 ]  (* The dimension of cohomology groups *)
%\end{verbatim}
The {\tt math2ox} adds the following functions to Mathematica:\\
{\tt OxStart[]},
{\tt OxStartInsecure[]},
{\tt OxExecuteString[]}
{\tt OxParse[]},
{\tt OxGet[]},
{\tt OxPopCMO[]},
{\tt OxPopString[]},
{\tt OxClose[]},
{\tt OxReset[]}
%Although the list of functions speaks itself,
%we add some explanations.
%The function {\tt OxPopCMO[]} executes the same operation
%as {\tt ox\_pop\_cmo()} in Risa/Asir;
%it pops data from the server stack.
%The {\tt OxGet[]} receives an OX data message
%and returns its translation to an local object.
%The function {\tt OxParse[]} helps debugging to connect Mathematica
%and ox servers.

%By using the function, one can send OX messages,
%written by the OX expression, to a server. 
%OX expressions are Lisp-like expressions for OX messages and are defined
%in~\cite{ox-rfc-100}.