namespace StormEigen { /** \page TopicPitfalls Common pitfalls \section TopicPitfalls_template_keyword Compilation error with template methods See this \link TopicTemplateKeyword page \endlink. \section TopicPitfalls_auto_keyword C++11 and the auto keyword In short: do not use the auto keywords with Eigen's expressions, unless you are 100% sure about what you are doing. In particular, do not use the auto keyword as a replacement for a Matrix<> type. Here is an example: \code MatrixXd A, B; auto C = A*B; for(...) { ... w = C * v; ...} \endcode In this example, the type of C is not a MatrixXd but an abstract expression representing a matrix product and storing references to A and B. Therefore, the product of A*B will be carried out multiple times, once per iteration of the for loop. Moreover, if the coefficients of A or B change during the iteration, then C will evaluate to different values. Here is another example leading to a segfault: \code auto C = ((A+B).eval()).transpose(); // do something with C \endcode The problem is that eval() returns a temporary object (in this case a MatrixXd) which is then referenced by the Transpose<> expression. However, this temporary is deleted right after the first line, and there the C expression reference a dead object. The same issue might occur when sub expressions are automatically evaluated by Eigen as in the following example: \code VectorXd u, v; auto C = u + (A*v).normalized(); // do something with C \endcode where the normalized() method has to evaluate the expensive product A*v to avoid evaluating it twice. On the other hand, the following example is perfectly fine: \code auto C = (u + (A*v).normalized()).eval(); \endcode In this case, C will be a regular VectorXd object. */ }