What is the difference: MATRIX GENERATE, STIFFNESS and ELEMENT MATRIX OUTPUT.

[Milan86]

Hi all,

I am new to abaqus. So I dont know what the difference is between MATRIX GENERATE, STIFFNESS and ELEMENT MATRIX OUTPUT.
I know both can be used to generate a stiffness matrix output.

Also I have used MATRIX GENERATE, STIFFNESS. This is meant to give me a sparse stiffness matrix. But when I generate the stiffness
matrix I can see some elements with zero values, specially at the start of the stiffness matrix output file.

Any sort of help is appretiated.

Regards
Milan