Software Parts for Elliptic Problems

The ELLPACK system is founded on the principle of software parts technology [Batz et al., 1983; Rice, 1982]. A software part is a program for performing a well-defined computational task. The form of input and output of a part is rigidly defined in such a way that various software parts can be joined together to perform more complex tasks. That is, the output of one software part is the input to a second software part, and so on. Thus, the specification of a set of interfaces defines an environment in which software parts can be easily intermixed. The purpose of the ELLPACK Contributor’s Guide is to describe a specific environment for software parts that can be used to solve elliptic boundary value problems.