python - Numpy: Row Wise Unique elements

Question

Does any one know how to get unique elements row wise in a matrix. For e.g. input matrix may be like:

a = [[1,2,1,3,4,1,3],
     [5,5,3,1,5,1,2],
     [1,2,3,4,5,6,7],
     [9,3,8,2,9,8,4],
     [4,6,7,4,2,3,5]]

It should return the following:

b = rowWiseUnique(a)
=>  b = [[1,2,3,4,0,0,0],
       [5,3,1,2,0,0,0],
       [1,2,3,4,5,6,7],
       [9,3,8,2,4,0,0],
       [4,6,7,2,3,5,0]]

What is the most efficient way of doing this in numpy? I tried the following code, is there a better and shorter way of doing this?

import numpy as np
def uniqueRowElements(row):
    length = row.shape[0]
    newRow = np.unique(row)
    zerosNumb = length-newRow.shape[0]
    zeros = np.zeros(zerosNumb)
    nR = np.concatenate((newRow,zeros),axis=0)
    return nR    

b = map(uniqueRowElements,a)
b = np.asarray(b)
print b

Answer 1

Assuming the values in a are floats, you could use:

def using_complex(a):
    weight = 1j*np.linspace(0, a.shape[1], a.shape[0], endpoint=False)
    b = a + weight[:, np.newaxis]
    u, ind = np.unique(b, return_index=True)
    b = np.zeros_like(a)
    np.put(b, ind, a.flat[ind])
    return b

In [46]: using_complex(a)
Out[46]: 
array([[1, 2, 0, 3, 4, 0, 0],
       [5, 0, 3, 1, 0, 0, 2],
       [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7],
       [9, 3, 8, 2, 0, 0, 4],
       [4, 6, 7, 0, 2, 3, 5]])

Note that using_complex does not return the unique values in the same order as rowWiseUnique; per the comments underneath the question, sorting the values is not required.

---

The most efficient method may depend on the number of rows in the array. Methods that use map or a for-loop to handle each row separately are good if the number of rows is not too large, but if there are lots of rows, you can do better by using a numpy trick to handle the entire array with one call to np.unique.

The trick is to add a unique imaginary number to each row. That way, when you call np.unique, the floats in the original array will be recognized as different values if they occur in different rows, but be treated as the same value if they occur in the same row.

Below, this trick is implemented in the function using_complex. Here is a benchmark comparing rowWiseUnique, the original method, with using_complex and solve:

In [87]: arr = np.random.randint(10, size=(100000, 10))

In [88]: %timeit rowWiseUnique(arr)
1 loops, best of 3: 1.34 s per loop

In [89]: %timeit solve(arr)
1 loops, best of 3: 1.78 s per loop

In [90]: %timeit using_complex(arr)
1 loops, best of 3: 206 ms per loop

---

import numpy as np

a = np.array([[1,2,1,3,4,1,3],
     [5,5,3,1,5,1,2],
     [1,2,3,4,5,6,7],
     [9,3,8,2,9,8,4],
     [4,6,7,4,2,3,5]])

def using_complex(a):
    weight = 1j*np.linspace(0, a.shape[1], a.shape[0], endpoint=False)
    b = a + weight[:, np.newaxis]
    u, ind = np.unique(b, return_index=True)
    b = np.zeros_like(a)
    np.put(b, ind, a.flat[ind])
    return b

def rowWiseUnique(a):
    b = map(uniqueRowElements,a)
    b = np.asarray(b)
    return b

def uniqueRowElements(row):
    length = row.shape[0]
    newRow = np.unique(row)
    zerosNumb = length-newRow.shape[0]
    zeros = np.zeros(zerosNumb)
    nR = np.concatenate((newRow,zeros),axis=0)
    return nR    

def solve(arr):
    n = arr.shape[1]
    new_arr = np.empty(arr.shape)
    for i, row in enumerate(arr):
        new_row = np.unique(row)
        new_arr[i] = np.hstack((new_row, np.zeros(n - len(new_row))))
    return new_arr