For dense matrix types the underlying storage of the matrix is just an array of m*n values. You can access this data directly from the matrix and it will provide the "vector view" so to speak. I am not sure about other types of matrices such as sparse or compressed since I have mostly dealt with dense. Here is some example code:

    ublas::matrix<int> mat1(3,3);

    // fill matrix with values
    mat1(0,0) = 1;
    mat1(0,1) = 3;
    mat1(0,2) = 2;
    mat1(1,0) = 1;
    mat1(1,1) = 0;
    mat1(1,2) = 0;
    mat1(2,0) = 1;
    mat1(2,1) = 2;
    mat1(2,2) = 2;

    // get vector view of matrix elements
    ublas::matrix<int>::array_type& myarray = mat1.data();

    // print contents
    std::cout << "myarray size: " << myarray.size() << std::endl;
    std::cout << "[";
    for (size_t i=0; i < myarray.size(); ++i)
    {
        std::cout << myarray[i];

        if (i != myarray.size()-1)
        {
            std::cout << ",";
        }
    }
    std::cout << "]" << std::endl;

    // modify some contents of the matrix using the vector view
    myarray[0] = 0;
    myarray[1] = 0;
    myarray[2] = 0;

    // print contents to show changes
    std::cout << "myarray size: " << myarray.size() << std::endl;
    std::cout << "[";
    for (size_t i=0; i < myarray.size(); ++i)
    {
        std::cout << myarray[i];

        if (i != myarray.size()-1)
        {
            std::cout << ",";
        }
    }
    std::cout << "]" << std::endl;

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 8:40 AM, Mark Johnson <mj1@cog.brown.edu> wrote:
I'm using uBLAS to implement an HMM package, and for that work it would be handy to be able to view the same data both as n by m matrix, and also as a vector of size n*m.  Views should permit element modification, so they are really just alternative ways of indexing the same underlying elements.

Perhaps uBLAS already has this capability?  In this case I'd be pleased if someone could point me to it.

uBLAS already has vector and matrix ranges and slices, which provide views to a subset of elements, and functions like row() and column() which provide a vector view of some of the elements of a matrix, but I think it would be very useful to have a general facility for doing this.

I think the existing uBLAS slices provide a general enough method of selecting and projecting a subset of elements.  Views would provide a way of restructuring such collections of elements.

One way to do this might be to add public constructors to matrix_reference{} and vector_reference{}, so the following code would be acceptable.  (Maybe the appropriate class would be matrix_container{} or matrix_expression{}.  It's not clear to me what the relationship between all these classes is; I'd appreciate an explanation).

ublas::matrix<double> m = ublas::zero_matrix<double>(4,5);
auto v = ublas::vector_reference(m);
v(10) = 1.0;  // now m(2,0) == 1.0

auto m1 = ublas::matrix_reference(m, 5, 4);
m1(1,1) = 2.0;  // now m(1,0) == 2.0

A disadvantage of my proposal is that every matrix expression would need to "know" whether it is row-major or column-major.  For my work now I don't really care if we just assume that all matrix_expressions are (say) row-major.

We could get the same functionality in other ways, of course.  For example, a lower-level way of doing this would be for every matrix and vector expression to provide a view of its data as a random-access sequence, and then provide constructors that can take such sequences and produce matrix or vector proxies from them.

Any suggestions or comments?

Mark

PS. Another feature I'd like is the ability to construct my own "computed on the fly" matrices like zero_matrix and identity_matrix.  In other words, if f is a function object of two integer parameters it would be handy to be able to write:

ublas::matrix<double> m = ublas::computed_matrix<double>(f, 4, 5);

and then m(i,j) == f(i,j).


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