Mystified by qr.Q(): what is an orthonormal matrix in “compact” form?

Question

R has a qr() function, which performs QR decomposition using either LINPACK or LAPACK (in my experience, the latter is 5% faster). The main object returned is a mat

Answer 1

I have researched for this same problem as the OP asks and I don't think it is possible. Basically the OP question is whether having the explicitly computed Q, one can recover the H1 H2 ... Ht. I do not think this is possible without computing the QR from scratch but I would also be very interested to know whether there is such solution.

I have a similar issue as the OP but in a different context, my iterative algorithm needs to mutate the matrix A by adding columns and/or rows. The first time, the QR is computed using DGEQRF and thus, the compact LAPACK format. After the matrix A is mutated e.g. with new rows I can quickly build a new set of reflectors or rotators that will annihilate the non-zero elements of the lowest diagonal of my existing R and build a new R but now I have a set of H1_old H2_old ... Hn_old and H1_new H2_new ... Hn_new (and similarly tau's) which can't be mixed up into a single QR compact representation. The two possibilities I have are, and maybe the OP has the same two possibilities:

1. Always maintain Q and R explicitly separated whether when computed the first time or after every update at the cost of extra flops but keeping the required memory well bounded.
2. Stick to the compact LAPACK format but then every time a new update comes in, keep a list of all these mini sets of update reflectors. At the point of solving the system one would do a big Q'*c i.e. H1_u3*H2_u3*...*Hn_u3*H1_u2*H2_u2*...*Hn_u2*H1_u1*H2_u1...*Hn_u1*H1*H2*...*Hn*c where ui is the QR update number and this is potentially a lot of multiplications to do and memory to keep track of but definitely the fastest way.

The long answer from David basically explains what the compact QR format is but not how to get to this compact QR format having the explicit computed Q and R as input.