Jim Blinn's Corner: Notation, Notation, Notation

Chapter Twenty-one

Tensor Contraction in C++

March–April 2001

class Polynomial

{

 TermList Terms;

public:

 Polynomial& operator+= (const Term& T)

 {

 Terms [T. Monomial] += T. Coefficient;

 return *this;

 }

};

In the previous chapter, I talked about a notational device for matrix algebra called tensor diagrams. This time I'm going to get real and write some C++ code to evaluate these quantities symbolically. This gives me a chance to play with some as yet untried (by me) features in the C++ Standard Library, like strings and STL container classes. For more on STL, check out my favorite book on the subject: The C++ Standard Library by Nicolai M. Josuttis (Addison Wesley, 1999). I am trying to figure out if I like these new-fangled programming tools by seeing ...