Save Space: The sparse matrix is represented using forms where only the NON-ZERO elements and their locations are stored. This saves space over a simple matrix where ZERO elements would also consume memory.
Is sparse matrix memory efficient?
Sparse matrices are often stored in compressed sparse row (CSR) format, which stores values and column indices of all elements in two separate arrays where elements of each row are stored continuously in memory. Row starts are stored in a third array which enables efficient access to sparse rows.
How are sparse matrices stored?
Storing a sparse matrix. A matrix is typically stored as a two-dimensional array. Each entry in the array represents an element ai,j of the matrix and is accessed by the two indices i and j. Conventionally, i is the row index, numbered from top to bottom, and j is the column index, numbered from left to right.
