9.11 Numerical Libraries

Panther ships with an impressive array of resources used for numerical computing. In addition to the optimized mathematical library, libm , many numerical libraries are packaged within the vecLib framework. This framework is located in /System/Library/Frameworks/vecLib.framework , and its libraries have been optimized to take advantage of the G5 and the Velocity engine. The vecLib framework contains the following libraries:

BLAS

Complete set (levels 1, 2, and 3) of the basic linear algebra subprograms. (See http://www.netlib.org/blas/faq.html.)

LAPACK

Linear algebra package, written on top of the BLAS library. (See http://www.netlib.org/lapack/index.html.) Lapack is designed to run efficiently having most of the actual computations performed by optimized BLAS routines.

vDSP

Digital signal processing.

vBasicOps

A set of basic arithmetic operations. (See /System/Library/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/Versions/Current/Headers/vBasicOps.h .)

vBigNum

A set of basic arithmetic operations on large (128-bit) integers. (See /System/Library/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/Versions/Current/Headers/vBasicOps.h .)

vMathLib

A set of basic vectorized transcendental functions, optimized for the Velocity engine. (See http://developer.apple.com/hardware/ve.)

To compile code using the vecLib framework, you must include the header file with the following line of code:

 #include <vecLib/vecLib.h> 

You can compile a program named prog.c , which makes use of this framework, as follows :

 $ gcc -faltivec -framework vecLib prog.c