Harwell-Boeing file format

The Harwell - Boeing format ( also compressed column storage) is a data structure that is used when storing matrices in files.

Background

The elements of a matrix, which are not zero are recorded column by column from left to right. These values ​​are then stored together with the corresponding line number in a column vector. This is then output to a file.

The advantages of the format lie in a comparatively small memory footprint because the zero elements of a matrix are not stored. Is applied the Harwell - Boeing format example in the calculation of finite elements, where the stiffness matrices are output in this data structure.