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"minor" typo: docs globally (?) misuse the term "minor" #848

@jaganmn

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@jaganmn

I am not aware of a text that defines a minor to be a matrix. Hence I was bit surprised to read

the leading minor of order i is not positive definite

here:

lapack/SRC/dpotrf.f

Lines 87 to 92 in cea4a63

*> INFO is INTEGER
*> = 0: successful exit
*> < 0: if INFO = -i, the i-th argument had an illegal value
*> > 0: if INFO = i, the leading minor of order i is not
*> positive definite, and the factorization could not be
*> completed.

Actually, grep -n SRC/*.f -e "minor" reveals many more instances ...

AFAIK, a minor is a determinant and not a matrix (see, e.g., Aitken, 1944, p. 39; Horn and Johnson, 2013, p. 17; ...), and it is therefore nonsense to consider whether a minor is positive definite. Should the text be globally amended to

the leading principal minor of order i is not positive

or

the leading principal submatrix of order i is not positive definite

depending on context? It would be the former in the case of DPOTRF, at least according to Sylvester's criterion ...

  • I've included a minimal example to reproduce the issue
  • I'd be willing to make a PR to solve this issue

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