How to define a python function 'on the fly' for use with pymanopt/autodifferentiation

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I had no idea how to phrase the title of this question, so apologies for any confusion there. I am using the pymanopt package for optimization and would like to be able to create some sort of a function/method that allows for a generalized input (variable amount of input arrays). To use pymanopt, one has to provide a cost function defined in terms of array that are to be optimized to minimize the cost.

For example, a cost function could be:

@pymanopt.function.Autograd
def f(A,B): 
    return ((X - [email protected])**2).sum()

To do the optimization, the variable X is defined prior to f, then f is supplied as the cost function to the pymanopt solver. Optimization is done with respect to the arguments of f and these arrays are returned by pymanopt with values that minimize the cost function.

Ideally, I would like to be able to do this definition more dynamically. So instead of defining a function in terms of hard coded arrays, to be able to supply a list of variables to be optimized. So if my cost function was instead:

@pymanopt.function.Autograd
def f(L): 
    return ((X - np.linalg.multi_dot(L)**2).sum()

Where the arrays A,B,...,C would be stored in a list, L. However, as far as I can tell, the variables to be optimized have to be directly defined as individual arrays in the cost function supplied to the solver.

The only thing I can think of doing is to define the cost function by creating a string that contains the 'hard coded' function and executing it via exec() with something like this:

args = ','.join(['A{}'.format(i) for i in range(len(L))])
exec('@pymanopt.function.Autograd\ndef({}):\n\treturn ((X-np.linalg.multi_dot({}))**2).sum()'.format(args,args))

but I understand that using this method should be avoided if possible. Any advice for navigating this sort of problem is greatly appreciated - thanks! Please let me know if anything is unclear/doesn't make sense.

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