introduce new free functions to access matrix/vector properties

[Gunter]

introduce new functions to make the access to important matrix properties more user friendly. The required functions are:

for vector expression

size( v ); // the number of elements in the vector
size<1>( v ); // synonym of size( v )

for matrix expression

// rationale: this is the most common name in mathematics
num_rows( m );    // return number of rows
num_columns( m ); // return number of row

// rationale: size<i> gives the size of the i-th index of operator()
size<1>( m );     // synonym of num_rows( m )
size<2>( m );     // synonym of num_columns( m )

for matrix containers

size<tag::major>( m ); // return the number of elements in the outer loop
size<tag::minor>( m ); // return the number of elements in the inner loop

maybe for dense matrix proxies

// rationale: this is widely used by LAPACK and similar 
size<tag::leading>( m ); // return the leading dimension 

note: The leading dimension is the distance in memory between elements of two consecutive rows/columns which have the same colum/row index. This value must be extracted from the underlying matrix container.

[Gunter]

(In [56600]) see #3449: introduce new free functions to access matrix/vector properties (Incomplete)

• move experimental traits of T[N] and T[M][N] to separate file

[Gunter]

(In [56602]) see #3449: introduce new free functions to access matrix/vector properties (Incomplete)

• added patch from Marco Guazzone implementing all requested new functions

[Gunter]

(In [56621]) see #3449: introduce new free functions to access matrix/vector properties (Incomplete)

• added error message when BOOST_UBLAS_NO_NESTED_CLASS_RELATION is defined because the free funtions will not work here.

[Gunter]

(In [56624]) see #3396 (view concepts), see #3449 (new free functions)

• merged [51765],[56003],[56600],[56602],[56621] into release
• added new free functions to simplify learning uBLAS

[Gunter]

(In [56637]) see #3449: introduce new free functions to access matrix/vector properties

• marked begin_end test as "expected fail" for msvc-7.1

[Gunter]

(In [57205]) see #3449

• merged [56637]: marked known failure of begin_end test for msvc 7.1

[Gunter]

(In [57207]) see #3443:

• merged improved documentation
• enabled forgotten unit tests in jamfile (see #3449)
• merged [53674],[53675],[56584],[56601] into release
• partially merged [56005],[56006] into release

[Gunter]

(In [57209]) see #3449: introduce new free functions to access matrix/vector properties (Incomplete)

• added short documentation to release_notes page

[Gunter]

(In [57210]) see #3449:

• merged [57209] into release

[Hannah Seymour]

Any news about A defector's mystical disappearance?

[Gunter]

close this issue because it has been merged to release months ago, see ​http://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/branches/release/libs/numeric/ublas/test/size.cpp