Project Summary Project SummaryThe Guide to Available Mathematical Software project of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) studies techniques to provide scientists and engineers with improved access to reusable computer software which is available to them for use in mathematical modeling and statistical analysis. One of the products of this work is an on-line cross-index of available mathematical software. This system also operates as a virtual software repository. That is, it provides centralized access to such items as abstracts, documentation, and source code of software modules that it catalogs; however, rather than operate a physical repository of its own, this system provides transparent access to multiple repositories operated by others.
Currently four software repositories are indexed: three maintained for use by NIST staff (but accessible to public), and netlib, a publically accessible software collection maintained by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (netlib in Tennessee) and Bell Labs (netlib at Bell Labs). This represents some 10,000 problem-solving modules from more than 100 software packages. The vast majority of this software represents Fortran subprograms for mathematical problems which commonly occur in computational science and engineering, such as solution of systems of linear algebraic equations, computing matrix eigenvalues, solving nonlinear systems of differential equations, finding minima of nonlinear functions of several variables, evaluating the special functions of applied mathematics, and performing nonlinear regression. Among the packages cataloged are : the IMSL, NAG, PORT, and SLATEC libraries; the BLAS, EISPACK, FISHPAK, FNLIB, FFTPACK, LAPACK, LINPACK, and STARPAC packages; the DATAPLOT and SAS statistical analysis systems; as well as other collections such as the Collected Algorithms of the ACM. Note that although both public-domain and proprietary software is cataloged here, source code of proprietary software products are not available, although related items such as documentation and example programs often are.
All cataloged problem-solving software modules are assigned one or more problem classifications from a tree-structured taxonomy of mathematical and statistical problems. Users can browse through modules in any given problem class. To find an appropriate class, one can utilize the taxonomy as a decision tree, or enter keywords which are then mapped to problem classes. Search filters can be declared which allow users to specify preferences such computing precision or programming language. In addition, users can browse through all modules in a given package, all modules with a given name, or all modules with user-supplied keywords in their abstracts.
Several user interfaces to the system are available :
Wide Web browsers are the recommended user interface. Users regularly telneting to the command-line or X11 interfaces should instead download and install a Web browser. The native gams (command-line) or xgams (X11) client programs are still available for downloading from math.nist.gov. However, these are now obsolete and will be phased out.
Complete documentation on using the clients programs are available within the clients themselves: press the Help button in xgams or type the command help in gams to get started. Please report any problems to gams@cam.nist.gov.
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Disclaimer:This system catalogs mathematical and statistical software made available for use at NIST by its Information Technology Laboratory. Identification of commercial products does not imply recommendation or endorsement by NIST.