GNU Scientific Library

infobox software
name = GNU Scientific Library
developer = GNU Project
latest_release_version = 1.11
latest_release_date = 31 March 2008
genre = Numerical library
license = GNU General Public License
website = http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/

In computing, the GNU Scientific Library (or GSL) is a software library written in the C programming language for numerical calculations in applied mathematics and science. The GSL is part of the GNU project and is distributed under the GNU General Public License.

Software which uses GSL includes Octave, PSPP and Perl Data Language.

Example

The following example program calculates the value of the Bessel function for 5 [http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/manual/html_node/Using-the-library.html] :

#include
#include

int main(void){ double x = 5.0; double y = gsl_sf_bessel_J0(x); printf("J0(%g) = %.18e ", x, y); return 0;}The example program has to be linked to the GSL libraryupon compilation:

gcc $(gsl-config --cflags) example.c $(gsl-config --libs)

The output is shown below, and should be correct to double-precision accuracy:

J0(5) = -1.775967713143382920e-01

Features

The software library provides facilities for:
*Basic mathematical functions
*Complex numbers
*Polynomials
*Special functions
*Vectors and matrices
*Permutations
*Combinations
*Sorting
*BLAS
*Linear algebra
*Eigensystems
*Fast Fourier transforms
*Numerical integration
*Random number generation
*Quasi-random sequences
*Random number distributions
*Statistics
*Histograms
*N-tuples
*Monte Carlo integration
*Simulated annealing
*Ordinary differential equations
*Interpolation
*Numerical differentiation
*Chebyshev approximations
*Series acceleration
*Discrete Hankel transform
*Root-finding in one and multiple dimensions
*Minimization in one and multiple dimensions
*Least-squares fitting
*Nonlinear least-squares fitting
*Physical constants
*IEEE floating-point arithmetic

C++ support

The GSL can be used in C++ classes, but not using pointers to member functions, because the type of "pointer to member function" is different from "pointer to function" [ [http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/pointers-to-members.html#faq-33.1 pointer to member function] ] . Instead, pointers to static functions have to be used. C++ wrappers for GSL are available [ [http://cholm.home.cern.ch/cholm/misc/#gslmm C++ wrappers for GSL] ] .

See also

* netlib
* "Numerical Recipes"
* list of numerical analysis software

References

External links

* [http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/ GNU Scientific Library project page]