11 geometry handling routines – Scotch Brand 5.1.10 User Manual

Page 113

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7.11

Geometry handling routines

Since the Scotch project is based on algorithms that rely on topology data only,
geometry data do not play an important role in the libScotch library. They are
only relevant to programs that display graphs, such as the gout program. However,
since all routines that are used by the programs of the Scotch distributions have
an interface in the libScotch library, there exist geometry handling routines in it,
which manipulate SCOTCH Geom structures.

Apart from the routines that create, destroy or access SCOTCH Geom structures,

all of the routines in this section are input/output routines, which read or write
both SCOTCH Graph and SCOTCH Geom structures. We have chosen to define the
interface of the geometry-handling routines such that they also handle graph or
mesh topology because some external file formats mix these data, and that we
wanted our routines to be able to read their data on the fly from streams that can
only be read once, such as communication pipes. Having both aspects taken into
account in a single call makes the writing of file conversion tools, such as gcv and
mcv

, very easy. When the file format from which to read or into which to write

mixes both sorts of data, the geometry file pointer can be set to NULL, as it will not
be used.

7.11.1

SCOTCH geomInit

Synopsis

int SCOTCH geomInit (SCOTCH Geom *

geomptr)

scotchfgeominit (doubleprecision (*)

geomdat,

integer

ierr)

Description

The SCOTCH geomInit function initializes a SCOTCH Geom structure so as to
make it suitable for future operations. It should be the first function to be
called upon a SCOTCH Geom structure. When the geometrical data is no longer
of use, call function SCOTCH geomExit to free its internal structures.

Return values

SCOTCH geomInit

returns 0 if the geometrical structure has been successfully

initialized, and 1 else.

7.11.2

SCOTCH geomExit

Synopsis

void SCOTCH geomExit (SCOTCH Geom *

geomptr)

scotchfgeomexit (doubleprecision (*)

geomdat)

Description

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