Overview

3 Basic Matrix Operations

Overview

This chapter describes the subprograms in the Level 2 (two-loop) Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms (BLAS) and the Level 3 (three-loop) BLAS. Collectively, these two sets of subprograms are called the Extended BLAS.

This chapter also describes subprograms from the BLAS Standard. BLAS standardization efforts, supported by software and hardware vendors and university groups, began with a BLAS Technical (BLAST) Forum meeting in November 1995 at the University of Tennessee. The efforts of the BLAST Forum resulted in a BLAS Standard specification in 1999.

This chapter describes the subset of BLAS Standard matrix operations that are supported in HP MLIB. Refer to “BLAS Standard routines” on page 339.

This chapter explains how to use VECLIB matrix subprograms, which perform common computationally-intensive linear algebra operations. The operations described for both the legacy BLAS and BLAS Standard are:

•Basic matrix-vector operations

•Basic matrix-matrix operations

The most important of the Extended BLAS and BLAS Standard subprograms have been coded in highly-tuned assembly language.

Chapter 3 Basic Matrix Operations 205