Sum of diagonal elements in a matrix

Question

I am trying to find out the sum of the diagonal elements in a matrix. Here, n is the size of the square matrix and a is the matrix. Can someone explain this to me what is happen

Answer 1

Use numpy library which is powerful for any matrix calculations. For your specific case:

import numpy as np
a = [[11,2,4],[4,5,6],[10,8,-12]]
b = np.asarray(a)
print 'Diagonal (sum): ', np.trace(b)
print 'Diagonal (elements): ', np.diagonal(b)

You can easily install numpy with pip or other ways that you will find on many webs.

If you want all the diagonals, and not just the main diagonal, check this that also uses numpy.

EDIT

mhawke, if you want to calculate antidiagonal (secondary diagonal), as explained in wikipedia, you can flip the matrix in numpy

import numpy as np
a = [[11,2,4],[4,5,6],[10,8,-12]]
b = np.asarray(a)
b = np.fliplr(b)
print 'Antidiagonal (sum): ', np.trace(b)
print 'Antidiagonal (elements): ', np.diagonal(b)