Up until now, all the proxy::dist wrappers included in this package returned complete matrices regardless of the values of their input parameters. When discussing the space requirements for a cross-distance matrix, the dominant factor is the numerator in n² / 2, but when it comes to real use cases in current hardware, that half can be significant in terms of required RAM. Therefore, I've updated the code so that distances that can result in symmetric matrices can be handled with only the lower triangular values, but strictly speaking this will be a breaking change with respect to previous versions.
Documentation has been updated, in particular to mention the DistmatLowerTriangular reference class that can help in some common scenarios.
Up until now, all the
proxy::distwrappers included in this package returned complete matrices regardless of the values of their input parameters. When discussing the space requirements for a cross-distance matrix, the dominant factor is the numerator inn² / 2, but when it comes to real use cases in current hardware, that half can be significant in terms of required RAM. Therefore, I've updated the code so that distances that can result in symmetric matrices can be handled with only the lower triangular values, but strictly speaking this will be a breaking change with respect to previous versions.Documentation has been updated, in particular to mention the
DistmatLowerTriangularreference class that can help in some common scenarios.