>> I am wondering if it is planned to eventually provide GSL with general >> sparse matrix routines (e.g. like those ones which are included in NAG, >> ESSL, or Harwell Library)?
> So far we haven't added sparse matrices because it seemed like > this would require several sparse matrix representations to be > implemented in order to be useful, each with their own functions. > Due to the potentially large amount of work involved, it seemed > like this was best left to specialised sparse matrix packages. > As I understand it the number of sparse functions in the NAG > library is pretty big. > If you have any suggestions in this area I'd be glad to hear > them. As it seems to me, it would be very useful to provide GSL at least with data structures defining three most commonly used formats for general sparse matrices, namely, coordinate format, compressed row storage, and compressed column storage, as well as two formats for sparse vectors based on compressed vector storage, and a minimal set of some basic functions. This would standardize representation of sparse objects within the GSL library and make it possible to use such data structures on developing sparse linear algebra software based on GSL. Thank you, Andrew Makhorin
