[Numpy-discussion] Numpy unexpected (for me) behaviour

[Robert Kern]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 02:10, V. Armando Sole <sole@esrf.fr> wrote:
> At 01:44 23/01/2009 -0600, Robert Kern wrote:
>>It is an inevitable consequence of several features interacting
>>together. Basically, Python expands "a[b] += 1" into this:
>>
>>   c = a[b]
>>   d = c.__iadd__(1)
>>   a[b] = d
>>
>>Basically, the array c doesn't know that it was created by indexing a,
>>so it can't do the accumulation you want.
>
> Well inevitable would not be the word I would use. I would have expected a
> different behaviour between a[b] = a[b] + 1 and a[b] += 1
>
> In the second case python (or numpy) does not need to generate an
> intermediate array and could be doing in-place operations.

I'm sorry, but that is how Python implements a[b] += 1. We have no
control over it. There is simply no hook to implement that statement
as an atomic unit. Instead, we have three hooks, __getitem__,
__setitem__, and __iadd__. __iadd__ is orthogonal to the former two,
so it can't know that it is operating in that context.

>> > Is there a way I can achieve the first result
>> > without a for loop? In my application the difference is a factor 10 in
>> > execution time (1000 secons instead of 100 ...)
>>
>>In [6]: bincount?
>>Type:           builtin_function_or_method
>>Base Class:     <type 'builtin_function_or_method'>
>>String Form:    <built-in function bincount>
>>Namespace:      Interactive
>>Docstring:
>>     bincount(x,weights=None)
>>
>>     Return the number of occurrences of each value in x.
>>
>>     x must be a list of non-negative integers.  The output, b[i],
>>     represents the number of times that i is found in x.  If weights
>>     is specified, every occurrence of i at a position p contributes
>>     weights[p] instead of 1.
>>
>>     See also: histogram, digitize, unique.
>
> Indeed what I am doing is very close to histogramming.
>
> Unfortunaly what I have to add is not just one but a value. I have a set of
> scattered points (x,y,z) and values corresponding to those points. My goal
> is to get a regular grid in which in each voxel I sum the values of the
> points falling in them.

That's what the weights input is for.

> I guess I will have to write a tiny C extension. I
> had expected the += sintax would trigger the in-place operation.

It does, just a different one than you want.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless
enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as
though it had an underlying truth."
  -- Umberto Eco