Am Samstag, 19. April 2008 12:20:39 schrieb nice:
> Matthew Fulmer wrote:
> > On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 10:39:27PM +0200, Danny Chan wrote:
> >> Hi!  Lately I have been playing with approaches to implement
> >> multi dimensional arrays  in squeak with functionality similar
> >> to python's numpy library.
> >>
> >> <snip>
> >>
> >> And finally, does something better already exist?
> >
> > SmalLapack already kinda exists:
> > http://ncellier.ifrance.com/Smallapack/
>
> Yes, that's a first attempt toward a scientific library.
> Unfortunately, if all tests pass on Dolphin and VW (not 100% covergae
> though), that's not the case of the Squeak version. Still bleding edge
> with image blocking (win32) or crashing (linux).
>
> I also have an unpublished link to FFTW in VW.
>
> Nicolas

Sounds interesting. There are two things I need in a matrix package, I would 
be interested if this can be done with Smallapack:

I need the ability to generate views into a data set like it is possible in 
python or Matlab. For example, in python I can do something like this to raw 
image data in a 2 dimensional matrix:

# selects a sub matrix containing every second pixel in each dimension
redChannel = image[::2, ::2]               
# selects a square of 50 pixels in the top left of the image
topLeft = redChannel[0:50, 0:50]

Each of the sub matrices is a view into the data and does not copy values.

Another thing I need quite often is the ability to change the interpretaion of 
the matrix data buffer on the fly. In python:

# charData is an array with n elements of type char
charData.dtype = dtype('int16')
# now charData is an array with n/2 elements of type short, interpreting the 
sequence of two bytes as one short


If this is not possible, what would be needed to make Smallapack support this? 

Danny