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Numpy - 2

Numpy Array Indexing

Numpy offers several ways to index into arrays.

Slicing : Similar to Python lists, numpy arrays can be sliced. Since arrays may be multidimensional, you must specify a slice for each dimension of the array:

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import numpy as np

# Create the following rank 2 array with shape (3, 4)
# [[ 1  2  3  4]
#  [ 5  6  7  8]
#  [ 9 10 11 12]]
a = np.array([[1,2,3,4], [5,6,7,8], [9,10,11,12]])

# Use slicing to pull out the subarray consisting of the first 2 rows
# and columns 1 and 2; b is the following array of shape (2, 2):
# [[2 3]
#  [6 7]]
b = a[:2, 1:3]

# A slice of an array is a view into the same data, so modifying it
# will modify the original array.
print(a[0, 1])   # Prints "2"
b[0, 0] = 77     # b[0, 0] is the same piece of data as a[0, 1]
print(a[0, 1])   # Prints "77"

You can also mix integer indexing with slice indexing. However, doing so will yield an array of lower rank than the original array. Note that this is quite different from the way that MATLAB handles array slicing :

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import numpy as np

# Create the following rank 2 array with shape (3, 4)
# [[ 1  2  3  4]
#  [ 5  6  7  8]
#  [ 9 10 11 12]]
a = np.array([[1,2,3,4], [5,6,7,8], [9,10,11,12]])

# Two ways of accessing the data in the middle row of the array.
# Mixing integer indexing with slices yields an array of lower rank,
# while using only slices yields an array of the same rank as the
# original array:
row_r1 = a[1, :]    # Rank 1 view of the second row of a
row_r2 = a[1:2, :]  # Rank 2 view of the second row of a
print(row_r1, row_r1.shape)  # Prints "[5 6 7 8] (4,)"
print(row_r2, row_r2.shape)  # Prints "[[5 6 7 8]] (1, 4)"

# We can make the same distinction when accessing columns of an array:
col_r1 = a[:, 1]
col_r2 = a[:, 1:2]
print(col_r1, col_r1.shape)  # Prints "[ 2  6 10] (3,)"
print(col_r2, col_r2.shape)  # Prints "[[ 2]
                             #          [ 6]
                             #          [10]] (3, 1)"

Integer array indexing: When you index into numpy arrays using slicing, the resulting array view will always be a subarray of the original array. In contrast, integer array indexing allows you to construct arbitrary arrays using the data from another array. Here is an example:

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import numpy as np

a = np.array([[1,2], [3, 4], [5, 6]])

# An example of integer array indexing.
# The returned array will have shape (3,) and
print(a[[0, 1, 2], [0, 1, 0]])  # Prints "[1 4 5]"

# The above example of integer array indexing is equivalent to this:
print(np.array([a[0, 0], a[1, 1], a[2, 0]]))  # Prints "[1 4 5]"

# When using integer array indexing, you can reuse the same
# element from the source array:
print(a[[0, 0], [1, 1]])  # Prints "[2 2]"

# Equivalent to the previous integer array indexing example
print(np.array([a[0, 1], a[0, 1]]))  # Prints "[2 2]"