Armadillo C++ linear algebra library : How to create vector of boolean

Question

Recently I started using Armadillo C++ library. Given my C++ coding skills are not that great, I found this very friendly for linear algebra. I am also using that along with my matlab to speed things up for many of reconstruction algorithm.

I do need to create a vector of boolean and I would prefer using this library rather than . However, I could not figure out how to do it. I tried using uvec; but, documentation seems to indicate that it can not be used with boolean.

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards, Dushyant

Answer 1

Consider using a matrix uchar_mat which is a typdef for Mat<unsigned char>, it should consume the same amount of memory as a matrix of boolean values.

The Armadillo documentation of version 7.8 states that a matrix Mat<type>, can be of the following types: float, double, std::complex<float>, std::complex<double>, short, int, long, and unsigned versions of short, int, and long. The code on GitHub however contains typedef Mat <unsigned char> uchar_mat; in the file include/armadillo_bits/typedef_mat.hpp so you should also be able to use uchar_mat.

You will not save any memory by creating a matrix of bool values compared to a matrix of unsigned char values (a bool type consumes 8 bits). This is because in C++ every data type must be addressable; it must be at least 1 byte long so that it is possible to create a pointer pointing to it.