Ixion is a general purpose formula parser & interpreter that can calculate multiple named targets, or "cells".

The goal of this project is to create a library for calculating the results of formula expressions stored in multiple named targets, or "cells". The cells can be referenced from each other, and the library takes care of resolving their dependencies automatically upon calculation. The caller can run the calculation routine either in a single-threaded mode, or a multi-threaded mode. The library also supports re-calculations where the contents of one or more cells have been modified since the last calculation, and a partial calculation of only the affected cells need to be calculated.

This library is written with portability in mind; platform specific calls are avoided as much as possible. It makes extensive use of the boost library to achieve portability where possible.

Achieving good performance is one of the goals of this project. As much care is taken as humanly possible, to attain reasonable performance.

Ixion can perform threaded calculation using arbitrary number of threads, for both full and partial calculation modes.

• Each calculation session is defined in a plain text file, which is parsed and interpreted by the Ixion parser.
• Fully threaded calculation.
• Name resolution using A1- and R1C1-style references.
• Support 2D cell references and named expressions.
• Support range references.
• Support table references.
• Dependency tracking during both full calculation and partial re-calculation.
• Inline strings.
• Volatile functions. The framework for volatile functions is implemented. We just need to implement more functions.

• 3D cell and range references - Initial support is in place. Needs more testing.
• Standard C/C++ interface for external applications - It's there, but needs to be stabilized.

• Matrix support.
  • Inline matrix.
  • Matrix as formula out from a single function.
  • Jump matrix - range input to function that expects a scalar input, and generate matrix output.
• More built-in functions.
• Support for custom functions defined in the caller program.
• Support for external references.

Ixion uses autoconf and automake as its build system. As such, building it from sources should be familiar to those who are used to these tools.

In short, run the following command:

./autogen.sh
make
make install

at the root directory after either cloning from the repository or unpacking the source package.

Ixion has build-time dependency on the following libraries:

• boost
• mdds

Note that when you are building from the master branch of the git repository, it's recommended that you also use the latest mdds source code from its repository for the build, else you may encounter build issues or test failures.

Starting with version 0.9.0, Ixion provides Python binding for those who wish to use Ixion from Python scripts. Refer to this documentation for more details on how to use Ixion's Python API.