Solving Differential Equations with Python and Runga-Kutta

[Cincinnatus]

I'm trying to write a program in python to solve a system of differential equations using the 4th order Runga-Kutta method.

I would ideally like the program to be able to solve systems of arbitrary size. To do this, I believe I will need to write a function (rk4) that would take as argument another function (the derivs function).

I've never written anything like that before though, I'm not exactly sure how to go about it...

Could I write something like:

def rk4 (derivs,whatever else) :
.
.
.
whatever=derivs(arguments)
.
.
.
return array of solutions

Is there any special syntax involved in having one function take another as an argument like this?

Is there anything else I should know before I try writing this?

 

[Wrichik Basu]

You cannot take another function as an argument, but you can certainly take the what the function returns as an argument. Say you assign what your function derivs returns into a variable asuch that the definition of your rk4 function will look something like this: def rk4 (a, <argument_list>). While calling the function rk4, call it like this:

rk4(derivs(<argument_list>), <other_arguments>)