Routine Naming Conventions

Level 1: vector-vector operations

Level 2: vector-matrix operations

Level 3: matrix-matrix operations

BLAS routine names have the following structure:

<character code> <name> <mod> ( )

The <character code> is a character that indicates the data type:

s
real, single precision

c
complex, single precision

d
real, double precision

z
complex, double precision

Some routines and functions can have combined character codes, such as sc or
dz.

For example, the function scasum uses a complex input array and returns a real value.

The <name> field, in BLAS level 1, indicates the operation type.
For example, the BLAS level 1 routines ?dot,
?rot, ?swap compute a vector dot product, vector rotation, and vector swap, respectively.

In BLAS level 2 and 3, <name> reflects the matrix argument type:

ge
general matrix

gb
general band matrix 带状矩阵（http://www.zybang.com/question/ced2b9ee5b38935a2be4f0bbeef41593.html

sy
symmetric matrix

sp
symmetric matrix (packed storage)

sb
symmetric band matrix

he
Hermitian matrix http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=aBRYiuYMF7rBywMdSXyAaaYHqtry0GsbhPS0egY3o_2UYd-cphLQ1c_0gwZmkcOcaAZvyew_-onpcEGoheAdh_
hp
Hermitian matrix (packed storage)

hb
Hermitian band matrix

tr
triangular matrix

tp
triangular matrix (packed storage)

tb
triangular band matrix.

The <mod> field, if present, provides additional details of the operation. BLAS level 1 names can have the following characters in the
<mod> field:

c
conjugated vector 共轭向量

u
unconjugated vector

g
Givens rotation. 吉文斯旋转

BLAS level 2 names can have the following characters in the
<mod> field:

mv
matrix-vector product

sv
solving a system of linear equations with matrix-vector operations

r
rank-1 update of a matrix

r2
rank-2 update of a matrix.

BLAS level 3 names can have the following characters in the
<mod> field:

mm
matrix-matrix product

sm
solving a system of linear equations with matrix-matrix operations

rk
rank-k update of a matrix

r2k
rank-2k update of a matrix.

The examples below illustrate how to interpret BLAS routine names:

ddot	<d> <dot>: double-precision real vector-vector dot product
cdotc	<c> <dot> <c>: complex vector-vector dot product, conjugated
scasum	<sc> <asum>: sum of magnitudes of vector elements, single precision real output and single precision complex input
cdotu	<c> <dot> <u>: vector-vector dot product, unconjugated, complex
sgemv	<s> <ge> <mv>: matrix-vector product, general matrix, single precision
ztrmm	<z> <tr> <mm>: matrix-matrix product, triangular matrix, double-precision complex.

Sparse BLAS level 1 naming conventions are similar to those of BLAS level 1. For more information, see
“Naming Conventions”.