Netlib should be not just a warehouse but a library, and for that it must
have adequate search tools. Each chapter (library) of netlib comes with an
``index'' file in a specified format, to promote searchability. Full
details of the format can be found in Section 4.1
or ftp://netlib.att.com/netlib/bib/thesaurus. Briefly, each
index file describes the content of a library by one ``paragraph'' of
attribute-value pairs for each file or sub-library. Some of the
more important attributes are: for, which tersely describes
what problem the tool solves; alg, which indicates distinctive
features of the algorithm used; by, which lists the authors;
gams, which allows searching by category; size, which
is useful when accessing netlib over limited network connections.
Each library has its own index file, maintained by the author or editor.
Every night all the index files are merged together into a global
database to facilitate global keyword searching.
A second kind of index is found in netlib/crc/. Here can be
found a list of all files in the collection, with dates and checksums.
Together with the software provided in that directory, the relatively
small crc file allows one to automatically check whether
local copies of files are current.