Sparse Matrices in Oct-Files - GNU Octave
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#### A.1.6 Sparse Matrices in Oct-Files

There are three classes of sparse objects that are of interest to the user.

`SparseMatrix`
  A double precision sparse matrix class
`SparseComplexMatrix`
  A complex sparse matrix class
`SparseBoolMatrix`
  A boolean sparse matrix class

All of these classes inherit from the `Sparse<T>` template class, and so all have similar capabilities and usage. The `Sparse<T>` class was based on Octave `Array<T>` class, and so users familiar with Octave's `Array` classes will be comfortable with the use of the sparse classes.

The sparse classes will not be entirely described in this section, due to their similarity with the existing `Array` classes. However, there are a few differences due the different nature of sparse objects, and these will be described. Firstly, although it is fundamentally possible to have N-dimensional sparse objects, the Octave sparse classes do not allow them at this time. So all operations of the sparse classes must be 2-dimensional. This means that in fact `SparseMatrix` is similar to Octave's `Matrix` class rather than its `NDArray` class.