python - Numpy "Where" function can not avoid evaluate Sqrt(negative)

Question

It seems that the np.where function evaluates all the possible outcomes first, then it evaluates the condition later. This means that, in my case, it will evaluate square root of -5, -4, -3, -2, -1 even though it will not be used later on.

My code runs and works. But my problem is the warning. I avoided using a loop to evaluate each element, because it will run much slower than np.where.

So, here, I am asking

1. Is there any way to make np.where evaluate the condition first?
2. Can I turn off just this specific warning? How?
3. Another better way to do it if you have a better suggestion.

Here just a short example code corresponding my real code which is gigantic. But essentially has the same problem.

Input:

import numpy as np

c=np.arange(10)-5
d=np.where(c>=0, np.sqrt(c) ,c )

Output:

RuntimeWarning: invalid value encountered in sqrt
d=np.where(c>=0,np.sqrt(c),c)

Answer 1

There is a much better way of doing this. Let's take a look at what your code is doing to see why.

np.where accepts three arrays as inputs. Arrays do not support lazy evaluation.

d = np.where(c >= 0, np.sqrt(c), c)

This line is therefore equivalent to doing

a = (c >= 0)
b = np.sqrt(c)
d = np.where(a, b, c)

Notice that the inputs are computed immediately, before where ever gets called.

Luckily, you don't need to use where at all. Instead, just use a boolean mask:

mask = (c >= 0)
d = np.empty_like(c)
d[mask] = np.sqrt(c[mask])
d[~mask] = c[~mask]

If you expect a lot of negatives, you can copy all the elements instead of just the negative ones:

d = c.copy()
d[mask] = np.sqrt(c[mask])

An even better solution might be to use masked arrays:

d = np.ma.masked_array(c, c < 0)
d = np.ma.sqrt(d)

To access the whole data array, with the masked portion unaltered, use d.data.