dolfin team mailing list archive

["Garth N. Wells" <gnw20@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 31/05/10 13:50, Anders Logg wrote:
> On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 01:17:15PM +0100, Garth N. Wells wrote:
> > At the moment, a linear solver is not associated with a particular
> > matrix. This makes it awkward and dangerous to re-use
> > preconditioners, factorisations, etc. I suggest that we change the
> > interface of the linear solver classes to accept a matrix at
> > construction, and that the solvers maintain a (smart) pointer to the
> > matrix. Opinions?
>
> It feels awkward to associate a linear solver with a specific system.

Why is that? All our la backends do it. It seems natural to me since 
solving a linear system involves a number of data structures which are 
specific to the matrix.

Garth

> One option would be to have both Problem and Solver classes for linear
> systems.
>
> This is also related to the following blueprint that addresses the
> issue of the inconsistency between the interfaces for linear systems
> and variational problems:
>
>    https://blueprints.launchpad.net/dolfin/+spec/solver-interfaces
>
> --
> Anders