Re: [ublas] When I can not use two prec_prod's?

Subject: Re: [ublas] When I can not use two prec_prod's?
From: Gunter Winkler (guwi17_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-10-20 17:54:41

Am Montag, 20. Oktober 2008 18:49 schrieb Peng Yu:

> Can somebody who has more knowledge of ublas details ask the question
> why
>
> std::cout << inner_prod(v, prec_prod(m, v)) << std::endl;
>
> would compile, but why a temporary need to have to make
>
> std::cout << prec_prod(m, mx_type(prec_prod(m, m))) << std::endl;
>
> compile?

It is because prod(A, prod(B, C)) has a much bigger complexity than 
expected. The reason is that the matrix element (j,k) of prod(B,C) is 
computed on the fly whenever it is needed for the product whit A. The 
result would be that prod(B, C) is computed n^2 times. In order to 
prevent such runtime "surprise" we added a static assertion which 
causes a compiler error. (Unfortunately the message is not as clear as 
needed. However we have to wait for a compiler that supports static 
assertions to improve this.)

If you compute an inner product of a vector and a matrix-vector-product 
then you have to compute each element of prod(m,v) exactly once. 

mfg
Gunter