21.1.2 Creating Permutation Matrices

For creating permutation matrices, Octave does not introduce a new function, but rather overrides an existing syntax: permutation matrices can be conveniently created by indexing an identity matrix by permutation vectors. That is, if q is a permutation vector of length n, the expression

P = eye (n) (:, q);

will create a permutation matrix - a special matrix object.

eye (n) (q, :)

will also work (and create a row permutation matrix), as well as

eye (n) (q1, q2).

For example:

eye (4) ([1,3,2,4],:)
⇒
Permutation Matrix

   1   0   0   0
   0   0   1   0
   0   1   0   0
   0   0   0   1

  eye (4) (:,[1,3,2,4])
⇒
Permutation Matrix

   1   0   0   0
   0   0   1   0
   0   1   0   0
   0   0   0   1

Mathematically, an identity matrix is both diagonal and permutation matrix. In Octave, eye (n) returns a diagonal matrix, because a matrix can only have one class. You can convert this diagonal matrix to a permutation matrix by indexing it by an identity permutation, as shown below. This is a special property of the identity matrix; indexing other diagonal matrices generally produces a full matrix.

eye (3)
⇒
Diagonal Matrix

   1   0   0
   0   1   0
   0   0   1

  eye(3)(1:3,:)
⇒
Permutation Matrix

   1   0   0
   0   1   0
   0   0   1

Some other built-in functions can also return permutation matrices. Examples include inv or lu.