How to initialize an empty vector of Float64

New to Julia
1 
struct A{T}
    time::Vector{Float64}
    data::Vector{T}
end

I would like to initialize an empty object of class A

I tried with outer constructor as below

A() = A([],[])

But it failed:

 julia> a = A()
ERROR: MethodError: no method matching A(::Array{Any,1}, ::Array{Any,1})
Closest candidates are:
  A(::Array{Float64,1}, ::Array{T,1}) where T at none:3
Stacktrace:
 [1] A() at .\none:1
 [2] top-level scope at none:0

Thus, I tried to find out how to initialized

A() = A(Array{Float64}[],[])

This is also failed

julia> a = A()
ERROR: MethodError: no method matching A(::Array{Array{Float64,N} where N,1}, ::Array{Any,1})
Closest candidates are:
  A(::Array{Float64,1}, ::Array{T,1}) where T at none:3
Stacktrace:
 [1] A() at .\none:1
 [2] top-level scope at none:0

How should we initialized an emtpy vector of Float64 type?

1 Like
2

You can do A() = A(Float64[],[]).

3 Likes
3

Perfect. Thank you!

1 Like
4

To expand on @rfourquet’s answer:

[] is a vector of Any, but your struct A requires a vector of Float64.

Moreover Array{Float64}[] is a vector of Vector{Float64} (you would have elements such as [[1.0, 2.0], [3.0, 4.0, 5.0]] for instance), which is why your third attempt fails.

Float64[] is also equivalent to Vector{Float64}(undef, 0), which is a vector of Float64 containing 0 elements of random (undef) content.

5

Note that Vector{Float64}(undef, 0) can be abridged to Vector{Float64}(). Also, to clarify for beginners, “random content” here doesn’t literally mean “random” but uninitialized (so content which might appear random, but is not initialized with random bits – use rand for that).

4 Likes
6

The error in this case is mostly not because of a vector of Float64 hasn’t been passed, but because the compiler cannot infer type parameter from A([], []).

If you write

A() = A{Any}([], [])

then Julia happily converts the first [] to Float64[].

That said, passing Float64[] as the first argument is better, as it avoids allocating a temporary Any[] just to throw it away.

2 Likes
7

Shouldn’t it be like below, with the parameter T?

struct A{T}
    time::Vector{Float64}
    data::Vector{T}
end

A(T) = A(Float64[],T[])

julia>A(Int)
A{Int64}(Float64[], Int64[])