Question

I am using Numeric Library Bindings for Boost UBlas to solve a simple linear system.
The following works fine, except it is limited to handling matrices A(m x m) for relatively
small ‘m’.

In practice I have a much larger matrix with dimension m= 10^6 (up to 10^7).
Is there existing C++ approach for solving Ax=b that uses memory efficiently.

#include<boost/numeric/ublas/matrix.hpp>
#include<boost/numeric/ublas/io.hpp>
#include<boost/numeric/bindings/traits/ublas_matrix.hpp>
#include<boost/numeric/bindings/lapack/gesv.hpp>
#include <boost/numeric/bindings/traits/ublas_vector2.hpp>

// compileable with this command


//g++ -I/home/foolb/.boost/include/boost-1_38 -I/home/foolb/.boostnumbind/include/boost-numeric-bindings solve_Axb_byhand.cc -o solve_Axb_byhand -llapack


namespace ublas = boost::numeric::ublas;
namespace lapack= boost::numeric::bindings::lapack;


int main()
{
    ublas::matrix<float,ublas::column_major> A(3,3);
    ublas::vector<float> b(3);


    for(unsigned i=0;i < A.size1();i++)
        for(unsigned j =0;j < A.size2();j++)
        {
            std::cout << "enter element "<<i << j << std::endl;
            std::cin >> A(i,j);
        }

    std::cout << A << std::endl;

    b(0) = 21; b(1) = 1; b(2) = 17;

    lapack::gesv(A,b);

    std::cout << b << std::endl;


    return 0;
}

Answer 1

Short answer: Don’t use Boost’s LAPACK bindings, these were designed for dense matrices,
not sparse matrices, use UMFPACK instead.

Long answer: UMFPACK is one of the best libraries for solving Ax=b when A is large and sparse.

• http://www.cise.ufl.edu/research/sparse/umfpack/
• http://www.cise.ufl.edu/research/sparse/umfpack/UMFPACK/Doc/QuickStart.pdf

Below is sample code (based on umfpack_simple.c) that generates a simple A and b
and solves Ax = b.

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include "umfpack.h"

int    *Ap; 
int    *Ai;
double *Ax; 
double *b; 
double *x; 

/* Generates a sparse matrix problem: 
   A is n x n tridiagonal matrix
   A(i,i-1) = -1;
   A(i,i) = 3; 
   A(i,i+1) = -1; 
*/
void generate_sparse_matrix_problem(int n){
  int i;  /* row index */ 
  int nz; /* nonzero index */
  int nnz = 2 + 3*(n-2) + 2; /* number of nonzeros*/
  int *Ti; /* row indices */ 
  int *Tj; /* col indices */ 
  double *Tx; /* values */ 

  /* Allocate memory for triplet form */
  Ti = malloc(sizeof(int)*nnz);
  Tj = malloc(sizeof(int)*nnz);
  Tx = malloc(sizeof(double)*nnz);

  /* Allocate memory for compressed sparse column form */
  Ap = malloc(sizeof(int)*(n+1));
  Ai = malloc(sizeof(int)*nnz);
  Ax = malloc(sizeof(double)*nnz);

  /* Allocate memory for rhs and solution vector */
  x = malloc(sizeof(double)*n);
  b = malloc(sizeof(double)*n);

  /* Construct the matrix A*/
  nz = 0;
  for (i = 0; i < n; i++){
    if (i > 0){
      Ti[nz] = i;
      Tj[nz] = i-1;
      Tx[nz] = -1;
      nz++;
    }

    Ti[nz] = i;
    Tj[nz] = i;
    Tx[nz] = 3;
    nz++;

    if (i < n-1){
      Ti[nz] = i;
      Tj[nz] = i+1;
      Tx[nz] = -1;
      nz++;
    }
    b[i] = 0;
  }
  b[0] = 21; b[1] = 1; b[2] = 17;
  /* Convert Triplet to Compressed Sparse Column format */
  (void) umfpack_di_triplet_to_col(n,n,nnz,Ti,Tj,Tx,Ap,Ai,Ax,NULL);

  /* free triplet format */ 
  free(Ti); free(Tj); free(Tx);
}


int main (void)
{
    double *null = (double *) NULL ;
    int i, n;
    void *Symbolic, *Numeric ;
    n = 500000;
    generate_sparse_matrix_problem(n);
    (void) umfpack_di_symbolic (n, n, Ap, Ai, Ax, &Symbolic, null, null);
    (void) umfpack_di_numeric (Ap, Ai, Ax, Symbolic, &Numeric, null, null);
    umfpack_di_free_symbolic (&Symbolic);
    (void) umfpack_di_solve (UMFPACK_A, Ap, Ai, Ax, x, b, Numeric, null, null);
    umfpack_di_free_numeric (&Numeric);
    for (i = 0 ; i < 10 ; i++) printf ("x [%d] = %g\n", i, x [i]);
    free(b); free(x); free(Ax); free(Ai); free(Ap);
    return (0);
}

The function generate_sparse_matrix_problem creates the matrix A and the
right-hand side b. The matrix is first constructed in triplet form. The
vectors Ti, Tj, and Tx fully describe A. Triplet form is easy to create but
efficient sparse matrix methods require Compressed Sparse Column format. Conversion
is performed with umfpack_di_triplet_to_col.

A symbolic factorization is performed with umfpack_di_symbolic. A sparse
LU decomposition of A is performed with umfpack_di_numeric.
The lower and upper triangular solves are performed with umfpack_di_solve.

With n as 500,000, on my machine, the entire program takes about a second to run.
Valgrind reports that 369,239,649 bytes (just a little over 352 MB) were allocated.

Note this page discusses Boost’s support for sparse matrices in Triplet (Coordinate)
and Compressed format. If you like, you can write routines to convert these boost objects
to the simple arrays UMFPACK requires as input.