# Pseudo-inverse and the backslash operator

So, I have a sparse matrix `A` and a vector `b` and I want to compute `pinv(A)*b`.

After reading this post I tried the following:

``````    using LinearAlgebra

julia>  A = [1 1 1; 2 2 2; 1 0 1]
3×3 Array{Int64,2}:
1  1  1
2  2  2
1  0  1

julia> b = [1,0,0]
3-element Array{Int64,1}:
1
0
0

julia> pinv(A)
3×3 Array{Float64,2}:
-2.22045e-16  2.77556e-17   0.5
0.2          0.4          -1.0
-1.52656e-16  1.66533e-16   0.5

julia> pinv(A)*b
3-element Array{Float64,1}:
-2.220446049250313e-16
0.20000000000000048
-1.5265566588595902e-16
``````

Everything is fine up to this point, but when I try the backslash operator i get:

``````    julia> qr(A)\b
3-element Array{Float64,1}:
-1.8385868488076965e15
-1.8242825833464351e-16
1.838586848807696e15
``````

I’m not sure what happened here. I don’t understand what the result is supposed to be, but clearly it is not `pinv(A)*b`. Am I using this wrongly or is it a bug?

Using a pivoted QR factorization will give you the result you are looking for:

``````julia> qr(A, Val(true)) \ b
3-element Array{Float64,1}:
-2.379544922143407e-16
0.20000000000000057
-2.1619865292617238e-16
``````

The standard QR algorithm only gives the same result as a multiplication with the pseudo-inverse if the matrix has full column rank.

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That works, thanks! However, I’m a bit perplexed by this. What does `qr(A)\b` actually do? What is the result?

I think it solve the linear system Rx=Q^Tb but assumes that R has full rank. In the algorithm for the pivoted QR is an explicit check on the rank of R (which is also easier to do there) and then computes a least square solution for the system.

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