Looping over array values in Lua - loops

I have a variable as follows
local armies = {
[1] = "ARMY_1",
[2] = "ARMY_3",
[3] = "ARMY_6",
[4] = "ARMY_7",
}
Now I want to do an action for each value. What is the best way to loop over the values? The typical thing I'm finding on the internet is this:
for i, armyName in pairs(armies) do
doStuffWithArmyName(armyName)
end
I don't like that as it results in an unused variable i. The following approach avoids that and is what I am currently using:
for i in pairs(armies) do
doStuffWithArmyName(armies[i])
end
However this is still not as readable and simple as I'd like, since this is iterating over the keys and then getting the value using the key (rather imperatively). Another boon I have with both approaches is that pairs is needed. The value being looped over here is one I have control over, and I'd prefer that it can be looped over as easily as possible.
Is there a better way to do such a loop if I only care about the values? Is there a way to address the concerns I listed?
I'm using Lua 5.0 (and am quite new to the language)

The idiomatic way to iterate over an array is:
for _, armyName in ipairs(armies) do
doStuffWithArmyName(armyName)
end
Note that:
Use ipairs over pairs for arrays
If the key isn't what you are interested, use _ as placeholder.
If, for some reason, that _ placeholder still concerns you, make your own iterator. Programming in Lua provides it as an example:
function values(t)
local i = 0
return function() i = i + 1; return t[i] end
end
Usage:
for v in values(armies) do
print(v)
end

Related

Optimizing custom fill of a 2d array in Julia

I'm a little new to Julia and am trying to use the fill! method to improve code performance on Julia. Currently, I read a 2d array from a file say read_array and perform row-operations on it to get a processed_array as follows:
function preprocess(matrix)
# Initialise
processed_array= Array{Float64,2}(undef, size(matrix));
#first row of processed_array is the difference of first two row of matrix
processed_array[1,:] = (matrix[2,:] .- matrix[1,:]) ;
#last row of processed_array is difference of last two rows of matrix
processed_array[end,:] = (matrix[end,:] .- matrix[end-1,:]);
#all other rows of processed_array is the mean-difference of other two rows
processed_array[2:end-1,:] = (matrix[3:end,:] .- matrix[1:end-2,:]) .*0.5 ;
return processed_array
end
However, when I try using the fill! method I get a MethodError.
processed_array = copy(matrix)
fill!(processed_array [1,:],d[2,:]-d[1,:])
MethodError: Cannot convert an object of type Matrix{Float64} to an object of type Float64
I'll be glad if someone can tell me what I'm missing and also suggest a method to optimize the code. Thanks in advance!
fill!(A, x) is used to fill the array A with a unique value x, so it's not what you want anyway.
What you could do for a little performance gain is to broadcast the assignments. That is, use .= instead of =. If you want, you can also use the #. macro to automatically add dots everywhere for you (for maybe cleaner/easier-to-read code):
function preprocess(matrix)
out = Array{Float64,2}(undef, size(matrix))
#views #. out[1,:] = matrix[2,:] - matrix[1,:]
#views #. out[end,:] = matrix[end,:] - matrix[end-1,:]
#views #. out[2:end-1,:] = 0.5 * (matrix[3:end,:] - matrix[1:end-2,:])
return out
end
For optimal performance, I think you probably want to write the loops explicitly and use multithreading with a package like LoopVectorization.jl for example.
PS: Note that in your code comments you wrote "cols" instead of "rows", and you wrote "mean" but take a difference. (Not sure it was intentional.)

Remove consecutive duplicates in Julia

I am quite new in Julia and I don't know how to remove consecutive duplicates in an array. For example if you take this array :
`v=[8,8,8,9,5,5,8,8,1];`
I would like to obtain the vector v1 such that:
v1 = [8,9,5,8,1];
Could anyone help me? Many thanks.
One method could be to define:
function fastuniq(v)
v1 = Vector{eltype(v)}()
if length(v)>0
laste = v[1]
push!(v1,laste)
for e in v
if e != laste
laste = e
push!(v1,laste)
end
end
end
return v1
end
And with this function, you have:
julia> println(fastuniq(v))
[8,9,5,8,1]
But, when dealing with arrays, one need to decide if elements are to be deep or shallow copied. In case of integers, it doesn't matter.
In StatsBase.jl there is an rle function (Run-length encoding) that does exactly this.
This is a lot slower than #DanGetz's function but here is a way to do it in one line:
function notsofastunique(v)
return [v[1]; v[2:end][v[2:end] .!= v[1:end-1]]]
end
>println(notsofastunique(v))
[8,9,5,8,1]
Maybe it's useful for someone looking for a vecotrised solution.
In the spirit #niczky12 one-liner solution goal, the following uses Iterators.jl package (very useful and slowly migrating into Base).
using Iterators # install with Pkg.add("Iterators")
neatuniq(v) = map(first,filter(p->p[1]!=p[2],partition(chain(v,[nothing]),2,1)))
Have not done any benchmarks, but it should be OK (but slower than the longer for based function).
Just for the sake of practicing...
Here is another little function you can use to do this, this function will work for non negative values (inluding 0) only.
function anotherone(v)
v1 = zeros(eltype(v),length(v))
v1[1]=v[1]+1
for e = 2:length(v)
if v[e] != v[e-1]
v1[e] = v[e]+1
end
end
return v1[find(v1)]-1
end
edit:
Adding one more version, according to the input in the comments. I think this one should be even faster, maybe you could test it out :) This version should work for negative numbers as well.
function anotherone(v)
v1 = falses(length(v))
v1[1]=true
for e = 2:length(v)
if v[e] != v[e-1]
v1[e] = true
end
end
return v[v1]
end

Concise way to create an array filled within a range in Matlab

I need to create an array filled within a range in Matlab
e.g.
from=2
to=6
increment=1
result
[2,3,4,5,6]
e.g.
from=15
to=25
increment=2
result
[15,17,19,21,23,25]
Obviously I can create a loop to perform this action from scratch but I wondering if there is a coincise and efficent way to do this with built-in matlab commands since seems a very common operation
EDIT
If I use linspace the operation is weird since the spacing between the points is (x2-x1)/(n-1).
This can be handled simply by the : operator in the following notation
array = from:increment:to
Note that the increment defaults to 1 if written with only one colon seperator
array = from:to
Example
array1 = 2:6 %Produces [2,3,4,5,6]
array2 = 15:2:25 %Produces [15,17,19,21,23,25]

Defining Table or Array name as name from Previously Defined String in Matlab

So I would like to optimize my code such that I can look through an array such as
{'one','two','three'}
and create corresponding variables defined as tables or arrays
such as
one = table()
two = table()
three = table()
I am aware of the eval function however I would like to use this function in a loop s.t I allocate values to the new variable right after i create it
If I am understanding your question properly, given a cell array consisting only of strings, you wish to create variables in your workspace where each variable is declared as a string using the names from this cell array.
You could use eval, but I'm going to recommend something other than eval. eval should be avoided and instead of iterating those reasons, you can read Loren Shure's article on eval.
In any case, I would recommend you place these variables as dynamic fields inside a structure instead. Do something like this:
s = struct()
strs = {'one', 'two', 'three'};
for idx = 1 : numel(strs)
s.(strs{idx}) = table();
end
In this case, s would be a structure, and you can access the variable by the dot operator. In this case, you can access the corresponding variables by:
d = s.one; %// or
d2 = s.two; %// or
d3 = s.three;
If you want to place this into a function per se, you can place this into a function like so:
function [s] = createVariables(strs)
s = struct();
for idx = 1 : numel(strs)
s.(strs{idx}) = table();
end
This function will take in a cell array of strings, and outputs a structure that contains fields that correspond to the cell array of strings you put in. As such, you'd call it like so:
strs = {'one', 'two', 'three'};
s = createVariables(strs);
However, if you really really... I mean really... want to use eval, you can create your workspace variables like so:
strs = {'one', 'two', 'three'};
for idx = 1 : numel(strs)
eval([strs{idx} ' = table();']);
end
To place this into a function, do:
function [] = createVariables(strs)
for idx = 1 : numel(strs)
eval([strs{idx} ' = table();']);
end
However, be warned that if you run the function above, these variables will only be defined in the scope that the function was run in. You will not see these variables when the function exits. If you want to run a function so that the variables get defined in the workspace after you run the function, then eval is not the right solution for you. You should thus stick with the dynamic field approach that I talked about at the beginning of this post.
In any case, this will create one, two and three as workspace variables that are initialized to empty tables. However, I will argue with you that the first line of code is easier to read than the second piece of code, which is one of the main arguing points as to why eval should be avoided. If you stare at the second piece of code long enough, then you can certainly see what we're trying to achieve, but if you read the first piece of code, you can ascertain its purpose more clearly.

Lua table.getn() returns 0?

I've embedded Lua into my C application, and am trying to figure out why a table created in my C code via:
lua_createtable(L, 0, numObjects);
and returned to Lua, will produce a result of zero when I call the following:
print("Num entries", table.getn(data))
(Where "data" is the table created by lua_createtable above)
There's clearly data in the table, as I can walk over each entry (string : userdata) pair via:
for key, val in pairs(data) do
...
end
But why does table.getn(data) return zero? Do I need to insert something into the meta of the table when I create it with lua_createtable? I've been looking at examples of lua_createtable use, and I haven't seen this done anywhere....
table.getn (which you shouldn't be using in Lua 5.1+. Use the length operator #) returns the number of elements in the array part of the table.
The array part is every key that starts with the number 1 and increases up until the first value that is nil (not present). If all of your keys are strings, then the size of the array part of your table is 0.
Although it's a costly (O(n) vs O(1) for simple lists), you can also add a method to count the elements of your map :
>> function table.map_length(t)
local c = 0
for k,v in pairs(t) do
c = c+1
end
return c
end
>> a = {spam="data1",egg='data2'}
>> table.map_length(a)
2
If you have such requirements, and if your environment allows you to do so think about using penlight that provides that kind of features and much more.
the # operator (and table.getn) effectivly return the size of the array section (though when you have a holey table the semantics are more complex)
It does not count anything in the hash part of the table (eg, string keys)
for k,v in pairs(tbl) do count = count + 1 end

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