det {Matrix}R Documentation

Calculate the Determinant of a Matrix

Description

det calculates the determinant (or its logarithm) of a matrix

Usage

det.Matrix(x, logarithm = TRUE)

Arguments

x numeric matrix.
logarithm logical. When TRUE, the default, the logarithm of the determinant is returned. When FALSE, the determinant of x is returned.

Details

det is a generic function with special methods for different types of matrices or decompositions. Use methods("det") to list all the methods for the det generic.

The det function from the base R package has a slightly different calling sequence. In particular, it does not have a logarithm argument and always returns the determinant, never the logarithm of the determinant. It is used as the default method for the generic det function defined here. Be aware that the logarithm argument will only have an effect when det is called on objects that inherit from the Matrix class.

Value

det.default returns a numeric value. Other det methods return a list with two elements

modulus a numeric value. The modulus (absolute value) of the determinant or the logarithm of the modulus. The value of the logarithm argument is included as an attribute.
sign a numeric value, which is +/- 1 according to whether the determinant is positive or negative.

normal-bracket30bracket-normal

Note

Often, computing the determinant is not what you should be doing to solve a given problem.

Examples

h9 <- hilbert(9)
det(h9)
det(h9, log = FALSE)