Porting matlab functions to scilab. How to use symbolic?

Question

I'm porting some matlab functions to scilab. The cool thing is that there is a conversion toolbox that make things very easy.

The problem is I did not find the counter part to the syms function, and the symbolic toolbox in general. (I'd like a port of the Control System Toolbox too, i'm still searching for some functions I'd may need).

The only thing about symbolic toolbox I've found is this but it was a little trcky and not so easy (actually I was not able to set up it correctly in 30min and I gave up for now, i'm gonna trying later) and it needs Maxima to be installed. Does anyone know anything about that?

Scilab is not exactly a must. The project aims to give a more free and open source alternative to matlab. I saw there is SymPy for python and I just could use it with SciPy but I'd lost the conversion toolbox thing :\

That said, what should be better? Get SciLab and Maxima work together or move to python & co.? This is the start of the project so the early I choose this the best is.

Answer 1

Not to discourage your project but if you just want a free and open source alternative to Matlab, have you looked at the Octave project? Contributing their might be more productive than building your own Matlab alternative.

If your project requires the functionality of Matlab's Symbolic then take a look at

• http://wiki.octave.org/wiki.pl?CategorySymbolic

From my quick Google search I didn't find anything comparable to Matlab's Simulink.

Also, Python, SciPy do have most of the functionality of Matlab and I guess Scilab's conversion utility would be useful in porting your own M-Files into Scilab code.

Your question seems to imply you want to port over Matlab Toolbox's

The only thing about symbolic toolbox I've found is this...

I hope I am just misinterpreting you. If you are then there might be licensing issues if you were to distribute your system because Matlab Toolbox. Just a thought. but perhaps you wish too port your Matlab code to so that it doesn't not have the Matlab dependancy.

Update

For Control System functionality Octave, I just found that Octave does have a toolbox see

• Octave Control Systems Toolbox

which has some of the functionality of Simulink but it doesn't seem to have the graphical interface for building block diagrams.

Answer 2

See Bye Matlab, hello Python, thanks Sage for a first-hand experience of migrating from Matlab to Python.