[SciPy-user] Easy way to make a block diagonal matrix?

[Ivo Maljevic]

>
> I disagree because block diagonal does have a special meaning and the
> result is not a diagonal matrix!
>
> > If all individual component matrices are square, then you get the
> > wikipedia definition.
> >
> My understanding is that only if the inputs are diagonal matrices will
> you get a block diagonal matrix from this function.
>
>
I am not a scipy developer, but from time to time I send an email to this
list with either questions or answers to somebody
else's questions.

What do you mean when you say "My understanding is that only if the inputs
are diagonal matrices will
you get a block diagonal matrix from this function."

Here is a non-definition block diagonal matrix with functionality similar to
matlab:

>>> a=numpy.ones([2,2])
>>> b=numpy.random.rand(3,3)
>>> import block
>>> c=block.block_diag(a,b)
>>> print c
[[ 1.          1.          0.          0.          0.        ]
 [ 1.          1.          0.          0.          0.        ]
 [ 0.          0.          0.93924665  0.43404552  0.46698808]
 [ 0.          0.          0.61331601  0.23593332  0.39016641]
 [ 0.          0.          0.10644194  0.66638397  0.6305998 ]]


as you can see, 'a' and 'b' are not diagonal matrices. I think the only
question is whether this function should work only in square matrix cases
such as next example:

>>> bb=numpy.random.randn(2,2)
>>> cc=block.block_diag(a,bb)
>>> print cc
[[ 1.          1.          0.          0.        ]
 [ 1.          1.          0.          0.        ]
 [ 0.          0.          0.57135707 -0.03777517]
 [ 0.          0.         -0.22069926 -1.40840111]]
>>>
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