[Numpy-discussion] numpy.linalg.svd documentation

[Charles R Harris]

On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 6:58 PM, Jason Grout <jason-sage at creativetrax.com>wrote:

> The SVD documentation seems a bit misleading.  It says:
>
> Factors the matrix a as u * np.diag(s) * v, where u and v are unitary
> and s is a 1-d array of a‘s singular values.
>
> However, that only is true (i.e., you just have to do np.diag(s) to get
> S) in general if full_matrices is False, which is not the default.
> Otherwise, you have to something like in the first example in the
> docstring.
>
> I'm not sure what the right fix is here.  Changing the default for
> full_matrices seems too drastic.  But then having u*np.diag(s)*v in the
> first line doesn't work if you have a rectangular matrix.  Perhaps the
> first line could be changed to:
>
>
I hate full_matrices as the default, it is almost never what I want and a
horrible waste of time and space. Nothing is too drastic when it comes to
full matrices.

<snip>

Chuck
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