Transposing a sparse matrix using linked lists (Traversal problems) - c++

Question

I'm trying to transpose a sparse matrix in c++. I'm struggling with the traversal of the new transposed matrix. I want to enter everything from the first row of the matrix to the first column of the new matrix.
Each row has the column index the number should be in and the number itself.
Input:
colInd num colInd num colInd num
Input:
1 1 2 2 3 3
1 4 2 5 3 6
1 7 2 8 3 9
Output:
1 1 2 4 3 7
1 2 2 5 3 8
1 3 2 6 3 9
How do I make the list traverse down the first column inserting the first element as it goes then go back to the top inserting down the second column. Apologies if this is two hard to follow. But all I want help with is traversing the Transposed matrix to be in the right place at the right time inserting a nz(non zero) object in the right place.
Here is my code
list<singleRow> tran;
//Finshed reading so transpose
for (int i = 0; i < rows.size(); i++){ // Initialize transposed matrix
singleRow trow;
tran.push_back(trow);
}
list<singleRow>::const_iterator rit;
list<singleRow>::const_iterator trowit;
int rowind;
for (rit = rows.begin(), rowind = 1; rit != rows.end(); rit++, rowind++){//rit = row iterator
singleRow row = *rit;
singleRow::const_iterator nzit;
trowit = tran.begin(); //Start at the beginning of the list of rows
trow = *trowit;
for (nzit = row.begin(); nzit != row.end(); nzit++){//nzit = non zero iterator
int col = nzit->getCol();
double val = nzit->getVal();
trow.push_back(nz(rowind,val)); //How do I attach this to tran so that it goes in the right place?
trowit++;
}
}

Answer 1

Your representation of the matrix is inefficient: it doesn't use the fact that the matrix is sparse. I say so because it includes all the rows of the matrix, even if most of them are zero (empty), like it usually happens with sparse matrices.
Your representation is also hard to work with. So i suggest converting the representation first (to a regular 2-D array), transposing the matrix, and convert back.
(Edited:)
Alternatively, you can change the representation, for example, like this:
Input: rowInd colInd num
1 1 1
1 2 2
1 2 3
2 1 4
2 2 5
2 3 6
3 1 7
3 2 8
3 3 9
Output:
1 1 1
2 1 2
3 1 3
1 2 4
2 2 5
3 2 6
1 3 7
2 3 8
3 3 9
The code would be something like this:
struct singleElement {int row, col; double val;};
list<singleElement> matrix_input, matrix_output;
...
// Read input matrix from file or some such
list<singleElement>::const_iterator i;
for (i = matrix_input.begin(); i != matrix_input.end(); ++i)
{
singleElement e = *i;
std::swap(e.row, e.col);
matrix_output.push_back(e);
}

Answer 2

Your choice of list-of-list representation for a sparse matrix is poor for transposition. Sometimes, when considering algorithms and data structures, the best thing to do is to take the hit for transforming your data structure into one better suited for your algorithm than to mangle your algorithm to work with the wrong data structure.
In this case you could, for example, read your matrix into a coordinate list representation which would be very easy to transpose, then write into whatever representation you like. If space is a challenge, then you might need to do this chunk by chunk, allocating new columns in your target representation 1 by 1 and deallocating columns in your old representation as you go.