tensor_test

by Robert G. Brown Duke University Physics Department Durham, NC 27708-0305 Copyright Robert G. Brown, 2024

tensor_test is a development/test wrapper for a proposed tensor extension of the GSL. Some of the changes it institutes are fairly serious, although it would be possible to implement it with less impact.

• The gsl block is redefined so that it is (also) a gsl vector. Before a vector was a block with an owner. Now a block is a block with an owner, and there is no separate "vector" quantity.
• The gsl matrix is redefined so that it can have any rank from 1 (vector) to 8. It contains lower, upper, and length vectors (each of length equal to the rank of the matrix) that contain the lower and upper bounds of the matrix indices and the over index length. The key feature of the matrix object is the void* matrix->mptr pointer, which can be packed with data addresses from a block and cast to whatever type pointer you like. This permits ALL MATRICES to be addressed in the form m[i][j]...[l][m].
• A gsl tensor is defined to be a matrix and an associated data block whose addresses are packed into the matrix-mptr pointer. It can be created or freed with a single command. However, blocks and matrices can be created and freed separately as well, and (for example) several matrices can refer to the same block or different parts of the same block. Freeing a matrix does not free the underlying data block; freeing a tensor does.

At the moment, the code passes at least one elementary set of tests; the block can be loaded as a straight vector with data elements which can then be successfully referenced by matrix address. In verbose mode, the test code also traces fairly explicitly the memory allocations and freeings (which is still not a guarantee that the code cannot leak or segvec fault). Still, it SEEMS to work out to 8th rank tensors for fairly arbitrary index limits.