EcoLab: Agent Based Modeling for C++ programmers

EcoLab is an agent based modeling system for C++ programmers, strongly influenced by the design of Swarm. This paper is just a brief outline of EcoLab’s features, more details can be found in other published articles, documentation and source code from the EcoLab website. 1 EcoLab EcoLab is an ABM system for C++ programmers. This is not the time or place to debate the merits of C++ over any other object oriented language. If you have chosen C++ as an implementation language for your models because of performance, expressibility, familiarity or compatibility with other software libraries, then ABM environments such as Swarm or Repast offer little support to you. In this case, you should consider EcoLab. 2 Scripting EcoLab uses the Classdesc[2] object descriptor technology. This provides a form of object reflection, or the ability to query an object’s internal structure at runtime. This may seem obvious to a Java or Objective C programmer, as object reflection is built into the language. How is Classdesc used in EcoLab? The user codes their entire model as a class. Usually, there will only be one instantiated object of that class (the model). Most model instance variables, and model methods adhering to particular calling conventions are exposed to a TCL interpreter. This allows great flexibility to