[SciPy-dev] Comments on API for Matlab's eigs equivalent (computing a few eigenvalues only)

[Rob Clewley]

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 2:31 PM, David Warde-Farley <dwf at cs.toronto.edu> wrote:
> On 4-Feb-10, at 3:12 AM, Dag Sverre Seljebotn wrote:
>
>> I feel there's also a certain convention of listing the largest
>> eigenvalues first; "let \lambda_i be the eigenvalues...assume
>> \lambda_2
>> < \lambda_1 ...".
>
> +1, though I've seen them listed from smallest to largest as well.
>
> David

I'm +1 too, but are these going to be ordered by norm of the
eigenvalue if they are complex, or by the real part only? I suggest by
norm, and the docstring needs to make the choice clear. This
functionality has to be consistent for all uses of eig()!

-Rob