JuliaLang / JuliaLang/LinearAlgebra.jl

Should L1 and L∞ Norms of Integer Vectors/Matrices be Integers?

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breaking needs decision
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Julia
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3d 23h
Merged PRs (30d)
10

Description

It appears norm() returns floats for L1 and L∞ norms of integer arrays and matrices. Is this desired behavior? For reference, Python's SymPy returns integers in these cases.

Example:

using LinearAlgebra

Q = Array{BigInt,2}([0 0 1 0 2 0; 0 0 0 1 0 0; 1 0 0 1 0 2; 0 2 1 0 0 0; 1 0 0 0 0 0; 0 
0 1 0 0 0])

r = Array{BigInt,2}([1 0 0 0 0 0]')

p = sum(Q^400*r)
q = norm(Q^400*r,1)

println(p)
println(q)
println(p-q)

Output:

599105291862848723668207669580395292943637098083701173062263490608359686886822443854726721692632230014822475550014198880241782518191032868274176
5.991052918628487236682076695803952929436370980837011730622634906083596868868222e+143
2.03493795765715104048118598582576955589097915016187079301972099072e+65

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Research direction

Reproduce the provided Julia example using LinearAlgebra.norm() on the BigInt vector and matrix result. Review the norm() behavior and documentation for integer inputs; done means deciding and documenting whether L1 and L∞ should preserve integer results, with regression coverage if a change is agreed.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
julia
Domain
data
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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