Move mlpack_allknn and mlpack_allkfn, but preserve old names

[rcurtin]

The name mlpack_allknn is misleading: "allknn" means "all k-nearest-neighbors", but that implies that the query and reference sets are the same. But that is not necessarily true. So mlpack_knn would be a more apt name. The same is true for mlpack_allkfn and mlpack_kfn.

These should be renamed in the CMake configuration, but also we want to preserve the old names as per https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/blob/master/UPDATING.txt , so that a user can still use mlpack_allknn and mlpack_allkfn if their scripts depend on it. (We can remove this backwards compatibility in either 2.1.0 or 3.0.0, I am not sure which yet.)

On Linux or UNIX-like systems, this is probably done easiest with a symlink, but on Windows I don't think this is possible so it may be necessary to make copies of the programs to preserve this support.

A patch here should be a modification to the project's CMake configuration and to the documentation throughout the project (i.e. the tutorials, the programs themselves, anywhere that references 'allknn' or 'allkfn').

[ibrahim5253]

I would like to work on this.

[rcurtin]

Sure, go ahead. It'd probably be a good idea to assign the ticket to yourself while.you work on it. :)

[ibrahim5253]

Sorry but I didn't get you. Assign a ticket? That can be naive but I am a newbie. Apologies.

[rcurtin]

Oh, maybe that is not an available option for you. At least in my interface, I can set the labels and milestone and "assignee" of the ticket, but I guess maybe this is only because I'm a repo admin. Anyway, don't worry about that then, sorry for the confusion.

[ibrahim5253]

I have modified 'src/mlpack/methods/neighbor_search/CMakeLists.txt' as required but am not sure how to accomplish backward compatibility. I am on Linux. Can you please guide me in the right direction?

[rcurtin]

Read the CMake documentation and find out whether or not it is possible to create a symlink when on systems that support symlinks, and then do that. If that isn't possible, then copying the executable is the best option.

The CMake documentation is quite comprehensive:
https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.5/
https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.5/manual/cmake-commands.7.html

[theaverageguy]

By copying the executable you mean? Could you give an example?

[rcurtin]

I mean that you should make a copy of the executable with a different name. Read the CMake documentation I linked to.