What is a Sparse Matrix?
Imagine a big table full of numbers, but most of those numbers are zeros. A sparse matrix is like that table, but it’s designed to save space by not storing all the zeros. Instead, it only keeps track of the non-zero numbers and their positions. So, if we have a massive table where only a few numbers have values, we can use a sparse matrix to save memory.
library(Matrix)
# Define dimensions of the sparse matrix
rows <- 5
cols <- 3
# Create a sparse matrix with random non-zero values
sparse_matrix <- rsparsematrix(rows, cols, density = 0.2)
# Print the sparse matrix
sparse_matrix
Output:
5 x 3 sparse Matrix of class "dgCMatrix"
[1,] . . -0.35
[2,] . 0.76 .
[3,] -0.54 . .
[4,] . . .
[5,] . . .
The above code generates a sparse matrix with dimensions 5 rows x 3 columns and a density of approximately 20% non-zero elements.
Transpose sparse matrix in R
In R Programming language there’s a package called Matrix that’s great for dealing with sparse matrices. When you transpose a matrix, you swap its rows and columns. But with sparse matrices, you need to be careful to keep them efficient.
Contact Us