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Let's say I have an interpolated function f, like I might get as the solution to an NDSolve:

f[x_] = y[x] /. First[NDSolve[{y'[x] == Cos[x], y[0] == 0}, y, {x, 0, 1}]]

InterpolatingFunction[{{0., 1.}}, <>][x]

Now suppose I define some convoluted function in terms of f:

g[x_] = f[x]^2 - 2 f[x]^4 + 3 x

3 x - 2 InterpolatingFunction[{{0., 1.}}, <>][x]^4 + InterpolatingFunction[{{0., 1.}}, <>][x]^2

This new function g preserves all the structure of how I constructed it, and in order to compute a value for, say, g[0.5], it will perform the computation in terms of f.

This allows me to do algebraic things like

Simplify[g[x] / f[x]]

(3 x) / InterpolatingFunction[{{0., 1.}}, <>][x] + InterpolatingFunction[{{0., 1.}}, <>][x] - 2 InterpolatingFunction[{{0., 1.}}, <>][x]^3

which works because Mathematica is remembering the details of g's construction in terms of f.

But for my own use case, once I've defined g, I no longer care at all about f. Is there a way to tell Mathematica to forget about all the complexity that is g's definition with respect to f, and collapse g all into a single InterpolatingFunction that produces the same values?

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    $\begingroup$ I think that after defining g with Set (=, as you do), you can safely Remove[f] without affecting g. $\endgroup$
    – b.gates.you.know.what
    Apr 18, 2015 at 17:50
  • $\begingroup$ That's true, but even in that case g[x] still produces a linear combination of three terms including several InterpolatingFunctions. But I don't care, in my mind g is just a function that takes a value of x between 0 and 1 and returns a particular value; I just want a single InterpolatingFunction object that does that exact job. $\endgroup$
    – thecommexokid
    Apr 18, 2015 at 18:14
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    $\begingroup$ You could use FunctionInterpolation on the combined function, result will be a single interpolation function, though there's going to be some difference in result... $\endgroup$
    – ciao
    Apr 18, 2015 at 21:19

1 Answer 1

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You can augment your NDSolve call to output your desired interpolating function. For your example we could do:

{f, g} = NDSolveValue[
    {
    y'[x] == Cos[x], y[0] == 0,
    z'[x] == 2 y[x] y'[x] - 8 y[x]^3 y'[x] + 3, z[0] == 0
    },
    {y, z},
    {x, 0, 1}
];

Here's what g looks like:

g //OutputForm

InterpolatingFunction[{{0., 1.}}, <>]

Let's compare the two approaches:

Plot[f[x]^2 - 2 f[x]^4 + 3 x, {x, 0, 1}]
Plot[g[x], {x, 0, 1}]

enter image description here

I think this is a better approach than using FunctionInterpolation to create a single InterpolatingFunction. NDSolve will adjust the step size so that both f and g are computed with the same precision and accuracy goals, while FunctionInterpolation can only use the accuracy/precision already present in f.

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