LAPACK++: A design overview of object-oriented extensions for high performance linear algebra

LAPACK++ is an object-oriented C++ extension of the LAPACK (Linear Algebra PACKage) library for solving the common problems of numerical linear algebra: linear systems, linear least squares, and eigenvalue problems on high-performance computer architectures. The advantages of an object-oriented approach include the ability to encapsulate various matrix representations, hide their implementation details, reduce the number of subroutines, simplify their calling sequences, and provide an extendible software framework that can incorporate future extensions of LAPACK, such as ScaLAPACK++ for distributed memory architectures. The authors present an overview of the object-oriented design of the matrix and decomposition classes in C++ and discuss its impact on elegance, generality, and performance.