JuliaArrays / JuliaArrays/BlockArrays.jl
Drop support for mixed blocks in broadcast?
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- Dominant language
- Julia
- Stars
- 254
- Forks
- 39
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Description
At the moment we combine the block structure in broadcasting. E.g.:
julia> mortar([[1,2],[3,4,5]]) + mortar([[1],[2,3,4],[5]])
4-blocked 5-element BlockVector{Int64}:
2
──
4
──
6
8
──
10
But this was an arbitrary decision with a major drawback: it makes it hard to preserve specialised block structure in a type-stable way. E.g. here we allocate since its impossible at compile time to determine Fill(2,2) is the same:
julia> x = BlockArray(1:4, Fill(2,2))
2-blocked 4-element BlockVector{Int64, Vector{UnitRange{Int64}}, Tuple{BlockedUnitRange{StepRange{Int64, Int64}}}}:
1
2
─
3
4
julia> x + x
2-blocked 4-element BlockVector{Int64}:
2
4
─
6
8
I suspect it would be more useful to error out if the block structure doesn't match. With the exception of the length-1 special case to still support:
julia> x .+ x'
2×2-blocked 4×4 BlockMatrix{Int64, Matrix{Matrix{Int64}}, Tuple{BlockedUnitRange{StepRange{Int64, Int64}}, BlockedUnitRange{StepRange{Int64, Int64}}}}:
2 3 │ 4 5
3 4 │ 5 6
──────┼──────
4 5 │ 6 7
5 6 │ 7 8
Contributor guide
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First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
The issue names no files or tests; start by locating the broadcasting implementation and its existing tests for block structure compatibility. Review the examples to define matching structures, the length-1 exception, and the expected error for mismatches; done means behavior is covered by tests without losing specialized block structure.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- julia
- Domain
- data
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100