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<h2 align="center"> Spark </h2>

<h3 align="center"> FLAME code-skeleton generator </h3>

The menu to your left will help you generate code for algorithms that resulted from the
FLAME approach to deriving linear algebra algorithms.

<p><hr><p>

<a name="section1"></a>

The first section allows you to 
<ol>
<li> Indicate the name of the function to be generated. <br>
Ofcourse it is useful to pick a name that is related to the operation.
For example, consider the operation
<div align="center">
<i> B := L<sup>-1</sup> B </i>
</div>
which is often referred to as a <i> Triangular Solve with Multiple Right-hand sides </i> (Trsm).
Here <i> B </i> is an <i> m &times n </i>  matrix and <i> L </i> is lower triangular.
We would suggest a name like
<div align="center">
<code> Trsm_llnn </code>
</div>
where the <code> llnn </code> indicates that the matrix <i> L </i> is
<p>
<ul>
<li>
on the <b>l</b>eft of matrix <i> B </i>, 
<li> <b>l</b>ower triangular,
<li> <b>n</b>ot transposed, and has a
<li> <b>n</b>onunit diagonal.
</ul>
<p>
<i> The above makes more sense to those who are familiar with the level-3 Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms (BLAS).</i>
<p>
<li>
Whether the algorithm is <i> unblocked</i>, <i> blocked</i>, or <i> recursive</i>.
<p>
<li>
An integer that indicates the algorithmic variant for the given operation the code that is being coded.
</ol>

<p><hr><p>

<a name="section2"></a>

In the second section, you need to indicate the number of operands for the function and some 
attributes of those operands:

<div align="center">
<table width="80%">
<tr>
<td width="50"> Tag: </td>
<td> The letter to be used for the variables.  </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Type:
</td>
<td>
The type of the operand: matrix, vector, or scalar.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Direction:
</td>
<td>
The direction in which the computation sweeps through the operand.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Input/Output:
</td>
<td>
Whether an operand represents input, output, or both. <br>
<b> Note: </b> For now, it is wise not to indicate that an operand is only an output variable.
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<p>
<blockquote>
The convention is that
<ul>
<li> upper-case letters denote matrices,
<li> lower-case letters denote vectors, and a "t" at the end of the name indicates a row-vector, and
<li> lower-case Greek letters denote scalars.
</ul>
</blockquote>

<p><hr><p>

<a name="section3"></a>

Next, you pick the output language to be generated:
<div align="center">
<table width="80%">
<tr>
<td width="50"> FLAME@lab </td>
<td> Mscript for <a href="http://www.mathworks.com/"> Matlab </a> or 
<a href="http://www.octave.org/"> Octave </a> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">
FLAMEC
</td>
<td>
Code for the C programming language using the 
<a href="http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/flame/">FLAME</a>
infrastructure. 
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">
PLAPACK
</td>
<td>
Code for the C programming language targeting distributed memory architectures
using the Parallel Linear Algebra PACKage 
(<a href="http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/plapack/">PLAPACK</a>) instructure.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
FLaTeX:
</td>
<td>
Source for generating an algorithm using LaTeX.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
FlamePy:
</td>
<td>
Code for the Python programming language using the FLAME infrastructure.
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>

<p><hr><p>

<a name="section4"></a>

Finally, you can indicate your name and e-mail so that the header identifies you as the 
person who coded the algorithm.

<p><hr><p>

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