From: Wolfgang Bangerth Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2016 17:56:24 +0000 (-0500) Subject: Rewrite the documentation of the BlockIndices class. X-Git-Tag: v8.5.0-rc1~1192^2 X-Git-Url: https://gitweb.dealii.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?a=commitdiff_plain;h=a9794875823e1ce19763056f5ef24ad9d94bdb4f;p=dealii.git Rewrite the documentation of the BlockIndices class. The existing documentation described mostly *how* things are done, but not what the class actually *represents*. --- diff --git a/include/deal.II/lac/block_indices.h b/include/deal.II/lac/block_indices.h index 795b4c3c23..bc4126f40a 100644 --- a/include/deal.II/lac/block_indices.h +++ b/include/deal.II/lac/block_indices.h @@ -29,21 +29,24 @@ DEAL_II_NAMESPACE_OPEN /** - * @brief Auxiliary class aiding in the handling of block structures like in - * BlockVector or FESystem. + * BlockIndices represents a range of indices (such as the range $[0,N)$ + * of valid indices for elements of a vector) and how this one range + * is broken down into smaller but contiguous "blocks" (such as the velocity + * and pressure parts of a solution vector). In particular, it provides the + * ability to translate between global indices and the indices within + * a block. This class is used, for example, in the BlockVector, + * BlockSparsityPattern, and BlockMatrixBase classes. * - * The information obtained from this class falls into two groups. First, it - * is possible to obtain the number of blocks, namely size(), the block_size() - * for each block and the total_size() of the object described by the block - * indices, namely the length of the whole index set. These functions do not - * make any assumption on the ordering of the index set. + * The information that can be obtained from this class falls into two groups. + * First, it is possible to query the global size of the index space (through + * the total_size() member function), and the number of blocks and their sizes + * (via size() and the block_size() functions). * - * If on the other hand the index set is ordered "by blocks", such that each - * block forms a consecutive set of indices, this class that manages the - * conversion of global indices into a block vector or matrix to the local - * indices within this block. This is required, for example, when you address - * a global element in a block vector and want to know which element within - * which block this is. It is also useful if a matrix is composed of several + * Secondly, this class manages the conversion of global indices to the + * local indices within this block, and the other way around. This is required, + * for example, when you address a global element in a block vector and want to + * know within which block this is, and which index within this block it + * corresponds to. It is also useful if a matrix is composed of several * blocks, where you have to translate global row and column indices to local * ones. * @@ -121,7 +124,7 @@ public: /** * String representation of the block sizes. The output is of the form * `[nb->b1,b2,b3|s]`, where `nb` is n_blocks(), `s` is total_size() and - * `b1` etc. are the values of block_size(). + * `b1` etc. are the values returned by block_size() for each of the blocks. */ std::string to_string () const;