FLENS is a C++ interface that supports BLAS and LAPACK, enabling easy and efficient implementation of linear algebra operations.
But FLENS is more than just a C++ interface. It's also extendable, with easy integration of user-defined matrix/vector types, and flexible, with generic programming of numerical algorithms.
It's important to note that FLENS is not a replacement for MATLAB. While FLENS does adopt some nice notations, it has a completely different intention. MATLAB only uses a subset of the BLAS and LAPACK routines, and if you have matrices with band structure, it won't use those routines that exploit this structure.
To be clear, this isn't a knock against MATLAB - it's a great tool in its own right. But if you want full control over what's going on behind the scenes, FLENS is the way to go. It provides general, triangular, symmetric, and hermitian matrix types, and elements can be stored in different formats, including full storage, band storage, and packed storage.
In addition, FLENS implements a view concept, so you can define that a vector references a row, column, or diagonal of a matrix. You can also define that elements of a triangular matrix are those stored in the upper triangular part of a general matrix.
Overall, FLENS is a powerful tool for anyone working with BLAS and LAPACK in C++. And with this latest release comes a minor bugfix to make it even better.
Version 2007-11-23: N/A