Common Errors in Calling LAPACK Routines

For the benefit of less experienced programmers, we give here a list of common programming errors in calling an LAPACK routine. These errors may cause the LAPACK routine to report a failure, as described in Section 7.2 ; they may cause an error to be reported by the system; or they may lead to wrong results - see also Section 7.3.

• wrong number of arguments
• arguments in the wrong order
• an argument of the wrong type (especially real and complex arguments of the wrong precision)
• wrong dimensions for an array argument
• insufficient space in a workspace argument
• failure to assign a value to an input argument

Some modern compilation systems, as well as software tools such as the portability checker in Toolpack [66], can check that arguments agree in number and type; and many compilation systems offer run-time detection of errors such as an array element out-of-bounds or use of an unassigned variable.