BlockedArrays

A BlockedArray is similar to a BlockArray except the full array is stored contiguously instead of block by block. This means that is not possible to insert and retrieve blocks without copying data. On the other hand, converting a BlockedArray to the "full" underlying array is instead instant since it can just return the wrapped array.

When iteratively solving a set of equations with a gradient method the Jacobian typically has a block structure. It can be convenient to use a BlockedArray to build up the Jacobian block by block and then pass the resulting matrix to a direct solver using Matrix.

Creating BlockedArrays

Creating a BlockedArray works in the same way as a BlockArray.

julia> pseudo = BlockedArray(reshape([1:9;], 3, 3), [1,2], [2,1])
2×2-blocked 3×3 BlockedMatrix{Int64}:
 1  4  │  7
 ──────┼───
 2  5  │  8
 3  6  │  9

This "takes ownership" of the passed in array so no copy of the array is made.

Creating initialized BlockArrays

A block array can be created with uninitialized entries using the BlockArray{T}(undef, block_sizes...) function. The block_sizes are each an AbstractVector{Int} which determines the size of the blocks in that dimension. We here create a [1,2]×[3,2] block matrix of Float32s:

julia> BlockedArray{Float32}(undef, [1,2], [3,2])
2×2-blocked 3×5 BlockedMatrix{Float32}:
 1.02295e-43  0.0          1.09301e-43  │  0.0          1.17709e-43
 ───────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────
 0.0          1.06499e-43  0.0          │  1.14906e-43  0.0
 1.05097e-43  0.0          1.13505e-43  │  0.0          1.1911e-43

We can also any other user defined array type that supports similar.

Setting and getting blocks and values

Setting and getting blocks uses the same API as BlockArrays. The difference here is that setting a block will update the block in place and getting a block will extract a copy of the block and return it. Note to update a passed in array without allocating one can use views:

julia> A = zeros(2,2)
2×2 Matrix{Float64}:
 0.0  0.0
 0.0  0.0

julia> copyto!(A, view(pseudo, Block(2, 1)));

julia> A
2×2 Matrix{Float64}:
 2.0  5.0
 3.0  6.0

It is sometimes convenient to access an index in a certain block. We could of course write this as A[Block(I,J)][i,j] but the problem is that A[Block(I,J)] allocates its output so this type of indexing will be inefficient. Instead, it is possible to use the A[BlockIndex((I,J), (i,j))] indexing. Using the same block matrix A as above:

julia> pseudo[BlockIndex((2,1), (2,2))]
6

The underlying array is accessed with Array just like for BlockArray.

Views of blocks

We can also view and modify views of blocks of BlockedArray using the view syntax:

julia> A = BlockedArray(ones(6), 1:3);

julia> view(A, Block(2))
2-element view(::Vector{Float64}, 2:3) with eltype Float64:
 1.0
 1.0

julia> view(A, Block(2)) .= [3,4]; A[Block(2)]
2-element Vector{Float64}:
 3.0
 4.0

Note that, in memory, each block is in a BLAS-Level 3 compatible format, so that algebra with blocks is highly efficient.