Re: how to introduce reference objects into ruby

>I see your conundrum. However I think it should be possible to do what you
>want. If you maintain only the list of columns I think you can still make it
>work.
>
>
> class MatrixRow
>  def initialize(columns, row_number)
>   @columns = columns
>   @row_number = row_number
>  end
>  def [](index)
>   @columns[row_number][index]
>  end
>  def []=(index, value)
>   @columns[row_number][index] = value
>  end
> end
>
>class SparseMatrix
> def initialize()
>   @columns=Hash.new{|hash,key|hash[key]=Hash.new}
> end
> def []=(i,j,value)
>   @columns[j][i]=value
> end
> def getRow(i)
>   return MatrixRow.new(@colums, i)
> end
> def getCol(j)
>   return @columns[j]
> end
>end

The problem with this is you don't know the valid elements in row "i": implementing a #each method for MatrixRow will be problematic and require you to go over ALL @columns, which takes way too long (@columns has length 100000000, while row(i) will in general have only about 30 elements. iterating through all 100M columns is too time consuming)
Greetings,
Geert.