The main purpose of `algo' and `algo2' is to enable you to watch the operation of the algorithm step-by-step. If you are only interested in the end result--a diagonal matrix D equivalent to the given A, together with unimodular matrices M and N for which MAN = D--use the function `quick'. This function has three outputs and one input, so it is called by a command of the form [D,M,N] = quick(A), or, if M and N are not needed, simply by D = quick(A). Of course quick is not able to handle extremely large matrices, but it uses `algo2' instead of `algo', so it can handle fairly large matrices, and the entries of M and N do not grow too rapidly.
Return to Chapter 2.