
===============================
Making arithmetic Ops on double
===============================

Now that we have a ``double`` type, we have yet to use it to perform
computations. We'll start by defining multiplication.


.. _op_contract:

Op's contract
=============

An Op (:class:`gof.Op`) is any object which defines the
following methods:


.. function:: make_node(*inputs)

  This method is responsible for creating output Variables of a
  suitable Type to serve as the outputs of this Op's application.
  This method should put these outputs into an Apply instance, and
  return the Apply instance.

  This method creates an Apply node representing the application of
  the Op on the inputs provided. If the Op cannot be applied on
  these inputs, it must raise an appropriate exception.

  The inputs of the Apply instance returned by this call must be
  ordered correctly: a subsequent ``self.make_node(*apply.inputs)``
  must produce something equivalent to the first ``apply``.

.. attribute:: default_output

  *Default:* None

  If this member variable is an integer, then the default
  implementation of ``__call__`` will return
  ``node.outputs[self.default_output]``, where ``node`` was returned
  by ``make_node``.  Otherwise, the entire list of outputs will be
  returned.

.. function:: __call__(*inputs)

  Syntactic shortcut to make_node which returns the output
  Variables of the Op.

  *Default:* this is done for you by Op.

.. function:: perform(node, inputs, output_storage)

  This method computes the function associated to this Op. The
  ``node`` is an Apply node created by the Op's ``make_node``
  method, ``inputs`` is a list of references to data to operate on,
  and ``output_storage`` is a list of storage cells where the
  variables of the computation must be put. More specifically:

    - ``node``: This is a reference to an Apply node which was previously
      obtained via ``mul``'s ``make_node`` method. It is typically not
      used in simple Ops, but it contains symbolic information that
      could be required for complex Ops.

    - ``inputs``: This is a list of data.

    - ``output_storage``: This is a list of storage cells.
      A storage cell is a one-element list. It is forbidden to change
      the length of the list(s) contained in ``output_storage``.  There is
      one storage cell for each output of the Op.

      The data you put in ``output_storage`` must match the type of the
      symbolic output. This is a situation where the ``node`` argument
      can come in handy.

      A function Mode may allow ``output_storage`` elements to persist between
      evaluations, or it may reset ``output_storage`` cells to hold a value of
      ``None``.  This feature can allow ``perform`` to reuse memory between
      calls, for example.

  This method must be determined by the inputs. That is to say, if
  it is evaluated once on inputs A and returned B, then if ever
  inputs C, equal to A, are presented again, then outputs equal to
  B must be returned again.

  You must be careful about aliasing outputs to inputs, and making
  modifications to any of the inputs. See :ref:`Views and inplace
  operations <views_and_inplace>` before writing a ``perform``
  implementation that does either of these things.

.. function:: __eq__(other)

  ``other`` is also an Op.

  Returning ``True`` here is a promise to the optimization system
  that the other Op will produce exactly the same graph effects
  (from perform) as this one, given identical inputs. This means it
  will produce the same output values, it will destroy the same
  inputs (same destroy_map), and will alias outputs to the same
  inputs (same view_map). For more details, see
  :ref:`views_and_inplace`.

.. function:: __hash__()

  If two Op instances compare equal, then they **must** return the
  same hash value.

  Equally important, this hash value must not change during the
  lifetime of self.  Op instances should be immutable in this
  sense.

.. function:: __ne__(other)

  *Default:* ``(not (self==other))``

.. function:: grad(inputs, output_gradients)

  Optional.

  If the Op you are defining is differentiable, you can define its
  gradient symbolically in this method.

  Both the ``inputs`` and ``output_gradients`` will be
  Variables. This method must return a list containing one Variable
  (or ``None``) for each input. Each returned Variable represents the
  gradient with respect to that input given the symbolic gradients
  with respect to each output.

  If the output is not differentiable with respect to any inputs,
  then this method should be defined to return ``[None for i in
  inputs]``.

  If this method is not defined, then Theano assumes it has been
  forgotten.  Symbolic differentiation will fail on a graph that
  includes this Op.

  It is important to understand that this is not meant to return
  the gradient of the Op's output but rather the gradient of some
  other criterion C with respect to the Op's input.

  If the outputs of your op are [ f_1, ... f_n], then
  ``output_derivatives`` gives [ grad_{f_1} C, grad_{f_2} C, ... , grad_{f_n} C ]
  If the inputs of your op are [x_1, ..., x_n], then your Op.grad should
  return [ grad_{x_1} C, grad_{x_2} C, ..., grad_{x_n} C ]

  where (grad_{y} z)_i = partial z / partial y_i  (and i can have any
  number of dimensions)
  (note: in the case where i is 2 dimensional, this definition of grad
  is different from the standard mathematical definition of the gradient
  of a scalar with respect to a matrix, where you transpose the indices)
 


At a bare minimum, a new Op must define ``make_node`` and ``perform``, which have no defaults.

For more details, including the interface for providing a C
implementation of ``perform()``, refer to the documentation for :ref:`op`.


Defining an Op: ``mul``
=======================

We'll define multiplication as a *binary* operation, even though a
multiplication Op could take an arbitrary number of arguments.

First, we'll instantiate a ``mul`` Op:

.. code-block:: python

   from theano import gof
   mul = gof.Op()


**make_node**

This function must take as many arguments as the operation we are
defining is supposed to take as inputs---in this example that would be
two.
This function ensures that both inputs have the ``double``
type.
Since multiplying two doubles yields a double,
this function makes an Apply node with an output Variable of type
``double``.

.. code-block:: python

   def make_node(x, y):
       if x.type != double or y.type != double:
           raise TypeError('mul only works on doubles')
       return gof.Apply(mul, [x, y], [double()])
   mul.make_node = make_node


The first two lines make sure that both inputs are Variables of the
``double`` type that we created in the previous section. We would not
want to multiply two arbitrary types, it would not make much sense
(and we'd be screwed when we implement this in C!)

The last line is the meat of the definition. There we create an Apply
node representing the application of Op ``mul`` to inputs ``x`` and
``y``, giving a Variable instance of type ``double`` as the output.

.. note::
   Theano relies on the fact that if you call the ``make_node`` method
   of Apply's first argument on the inputs passed as the Apply's
   second argument, the call will not fail and the returned Apply
   instance will be equivalent.  This is how graphs are copied.

**perform**

This code actually computes the function.
In our example, the data in ``inputs`` will be instances of Python's
built-in type ``float`` because this is the type that ``double.filter()``
will always return, per our own definition. ``output_storage`` will
contain a single storage cell for the multiplication's variable.

.. code-block:: python

   def perform(node, inputs, output_storage):
       x, y = inputs[0], inputs[1]
       z = output_storage[0]
       z[0] = x * y
   mul.perform = perform

Here, ``z`` is a list of one element. By default, ``z == [None]``.

.. note::
   It is possible that ``z`` does not contain ``None``. If it contains
   anything else, Theano guarantees that whatever it contains is what
   ``perform`` put there the last time it was called with this
   particular storage. Furthermore, Theano gives you permission to do
   whatever you want with ``z``'s contents, chiefly reusing it or the
   memory allocated for it. More information can be found in the
   :ref:`op` documentation.

.. warning::
   We gave ``z`` the Theano type ``double`` in ``make_node``, which means
   that a Python ``float`` must be put there. You should not put, say, an
   ``int`` in ``z[0]`` because Theano assumes Ops handle typing properly.


Trying out our new Op
=====================

In the following code, we use our new Op:

>>> x, y = double('x'), double('y')
>>> z = mul(x, y)
>>> f = theano.function([x, y], z)
>>> f(5, 6)
30.0
>>> f(5.6, 6.7)
37.519999999999996

Note that there is an implicit call to
``double.filter()`` on each argument, so if we give integers as inputs
they are magically casted to the right type. Now, what if we try this?

>>> x = double('x')
>>> z = mul(x, 2)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/u/breuleuo/hg/theano/theano/gof/op.py", line 207, in __call__
  File "<stdin>", line 2, in make_node
AttributeError: 'int' object has no attribute 'type'

Automatic Constant Wrapping
---------------------------

Well, OK. We'd like our Op to be a bit more flexible. This can be done
by modifying ``make_node`` to accept Python ``int`` or ``float`` as
``x`` and/or ``y``:

.. code-block:: python

   def make_node(x, y):
       if isinstance(x, (int, float)):
           x = gof.Constant(double, x)
       if isinstance(y, (int, float)):
           y = gof.Constant(double, y)
       if x.type != double or y.type != double:
           raise TypeError('mul only works on doubles')
       return gof.Apply(mul, [x, y], [double()])
   mul.make_node = make_node

Whenever we pass a Python int or float instead of a Variable as ``x`` or
``y``, ``make_node`` will convert it to :ref:`constant` for us. ``gof.Constant``
is a :ref:`variable` we statically know the value of.

>>> x = double('x')
>>> z = mul(x, 2)
>>> f = theano.function([x], z)
>>> f(10)
20.0
>>> f(3.4)
6.7999999999999998

Now the code works the way we want it to.

.. note:: 
   Most Theano Ops follow this convention of up-casting literal 
   make_node arguments to Constants.
   This makes typing expressions more natural.  If you do 
   not want a constant somewhere in your graph, you have to pass a Variable
   (like ``double('x')`` here).



Final version
=============

The above example is pedagogical.  When you define other basic arithmetic
operations ``add``, ``sub`` and ``div``, code for ``make_node`` can be
shared between these Ops. Here is revised implementation of these four
arithmetic operators:

.. code-block:: python

   from theano import gof

   class BinaryDoubleOp(gof.Op):
   
       def __init__(self, name, fn):
           self.name = name
           self.fn = fn

       def __eq__(self, other):
           return type(self) == type(other) and (self.name == other.name) and (self.fn == other.fn)

       def __hash__(self):
           return hash(type(self)) ^ hash(self.name) ^ hash(self.fn)
   
       def make_node(self, x, y):
           if isinstance(x, (int, float)):
               x = gof.Constant(double, x)
           if isinstance(y, (int, float)):
               y = gof.Constant(double, y)
           if x.type != double or y.type != double:
               raise TypeError('%s only works on doubles' % self.name)
           return gof.Apply(self, [x, y], [double()])
   
       def perform(self, node, (x, y), (z, )):
           z[0] = self.fn(x, y)

       def __str__(self):
           return self.name
   
   add = BinaryDoubleOp(name = 'add',
                        fn = lambda x, y: x + y)
   
   sub = BinaryDoubleOp(name = 'sub',
                        fn = lambda x, y: x - y)
   
   mul = BinaryDoubleOp(name = 'mul',
                        fn = lambda x, y: x * y)
   
   div = BinaryDoubleOp(name = 'div',
                        fn = lambda x, y: x / y)

Instead of working directly on an instance of Op, we create a subclass of
Op that we can parametrize. All the operations we define are binary. They
all work on two inputs with type ``double``. They all return a single
Variable of type ``double``. Therefore, ``make_node`` does the same thing
for all these operations, except for the Op reference ``self`` passed
as first argument to Apply.  We define ``perform`` using the function
``fn`` passed in the constructor.

This design is a flexible way to define basic operations without
duplicating code. The same way a Type subclass represents a set of
structurally similar types (see previous section), an Op subclass
represents a set of structurally similar operations: operations that
have the same input/output types, operations that only differ in one
small detail, etc. If you see common patterns in several Ops that you
want to define, it can be a good idea to abstract out what you can.
Remember that an Op is just an object which satisfies the contract
described above on this page and that you should use all the tools at
your disposal to create these objects as efficiently as possible.

**Exercise**: Make a generic DoubleOp, where the number of
arguments can also be given as a parameter.

