On the Numerical Efficiency of C++ in Scientific Computing

Erlend Arge (), Are Magnus Bruaset (), Phillip B. Calvin (), Joseph F. Kanney (), Hans Petter Langtangen () and Cass T. Miller ()
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Erlend Arge: SINTEF
Are Magnus Bruaset: SINTEF
Phillip B. Calvin: University of North Carolina, Dept. of Environmental Sciences and Engineering
Joseph F. Kanney: University of North Carolina
Hans Petter Langtangen: University of Oslo, Dept. of Mathematics
Cass T. Miller: University of North Carolina

Chapter 5 in Numerical Methods and Software Tools in Industrial Mathematics, 1997, pp 91-118 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract We investigate the relative efficiency of C++ and C code versus FORTRAN 77 code through numerical experiments conducted on a range of computer platforms. The problem areas cover basic linear algebra and finite element solution of porous media fluid flow and species transport problems. The C++ codes are short and make extensive use of Diffpack, a generic library based on object-oriented programming techniques, while the FORTRAN and C programs are either based on vendor supplied numerical libraries or written and tuned particularly for the test problem. Challenges encountered in optimizing C++ codes and the efficiency of dynamic memory handling in C++ are also addressed. Differences in computational efficiency observed for the problem areas studied were small, and tended to be problem dependent. Based on our experience with optimizing C++ code, we conclude that the use of object-oriented techniques should be confined to high-level administrative tasks, while CPU intensive numerics should be implemented using low-level C code and carefully constructed for-loops.

Keywords: FORTRAN Code; Dynamic Memory; Numerical Efficiency; Basic Linear Algebra; Memory Segment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-1-4612-1984-2_5

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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4612-1984-2_5

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