'matrix too large' exception using colt java lib

Question

I was using cern.colt.matrix.* lib for sparse matrix calculations ..but it seems that I keep running into this error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: matrix too large

I think this is because the constructor throws exception when nrows*ncols > INTEGER.max

api: http://acs.lbl.gov/software/colt/api/cern/colt/matrix/impl/SparseDoubleMatrix2D.html exception: IllegalArgumentException - if rows<0 || columns<0 || (double)columns*rows > Integer.MAX_VALUE.

My rows are: 5787 and cols are 418032.

This worked fine in matlab( matrix loads just fine and all operations work ). I wanted to know how can i resolve this problem ? Should i be using a diff sparse matrix lib or do i need to slice my matrices or store matrix as row vector of SparseDoubleMatrix1D

Thanks.

Answer 1

You are running into an implementation problem with matrices here. I suspect you have to break up the matrix however you may find you need more memory than you have.

Depending on how sparse the matrix is you will need 19 GB just for this matrix.