[boost] Re: boost::ublas and solver

From: Michael Stevens (Michael.Stevens_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-03-02 02:48:09

Dear Loïc,

On Tuesday 02 March 2004 00:33, Loïc Joly <loic.actarus.joly_at_[hidden]> 
wrote:
> I was recently trying to convince one of my colleagues that a vector
> (mathematical, not stl) and matrix library instead of raw C arrays could
> be usefull for his job.
An excellent decision!

> I naturally turned toward boost::ublas, but then 
> I had one surprise: One thing I expected to find in such a library was a
> collection of solvers (LU, gaussian elimination...), but I found none.

The simple answer is in the name 'BLAS'. uBLAS is a library for Basic Linear 
Algebra. It provides storage for vectors and matrices (dense, packed, and 
various sparse methods) and basic linear algebra operations. Of course all 
this is put together in a safe and efficient C++ package!

For a more complete answer have a look at 
http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/cgi-bin/boost_wiki/wiki.pl?Linear_Algebra_With_UBLAS

> Is this because they exist, but I could not find them in the
> documentation (btw, I have some trouble to understand the doc, too much
> code, not enough english to my taste) ?
True. Feel free to contribute documentation. I am using the Boost Wiki to 
organise new introductory information which can eventually be merged into the 
official uBLAS documentation.

> Is is because there was a good design decision not to include them ?
> Is it because this is a very touchy domain and poeple could not agree on
> generic solutions ?
> Is is just an oversight ?
Yes, No and No.
There is no end to the number of Linear algebra algorithms. uBLAS provide 
efficient infrastruture for C++ to solve these problems however.

Michael
-- 
___________________________________
Michael Stevens Systems Engineering
Navigation Systems, Estimation  and
                 Bayesian Filtering
    http://www.sf.net/Bayes++
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