This problem can be effectively solved in pure numpy by processing the array in chunks:
def find_first(x):
idx, step = 0, 32
while idx < x.size:
nz, = x[idx: idx + step].nonzero()
if len(nz): # found non-zero, return it
return nz[0] + idx
# move to the next chunk, increase step
idx += step
step = min(9600, step + step // 2)
return -1
The array is processed in chunk of size step. The step longer the step is, the faster is processing of zeroed-array (worst case). The smaller it is, the faster processing of array with non-zero at the start. The trick is to start with a small step and increase it exponentially. Moreover, there is no need to increment it above some threshold due to limited benefits.
I've compared the solution with pure ndarary.nonzero and numba solution against 10 million array of floats.
import numpy as np
from numba import jit
from timeit import timeit
def find_first(x):
idx, step = 0, 32
while idx < x.size:
nz, = x[idx: idx + step].nonzero()
if len(nz):
return nz[0] + idx
idx += step
step = min(9600, step + step // 2)
return -1
@jit(nopython=True)
def find_first_numba(vec):
"""return the index of the first occurence of item in vec"""
for i in range(len(vec)):
if vec[i]:
return i
return -1
SIZE = 10_000_000
# First only
x = np.empty(SIZE)
find_first_numba(x[:10])
print('---- FIRST ----')
x[:] = 0
x[0] = 1
print('ndarray.nonzero', timeit(lambda: x.nonzero()[0][0], number=100)*10, 'ms')
print('find_first', timeit(lambda: find_first(x), number=1000), 'ms')
print('find_first_numba', timeit(lambda: find_first_numba(x), number=1000), 'ms')
print('---- LAST ----')
x[:] = 0
x[-1] = 1
print('ndarray.nonzero', timeit(lambda: x.nonzero()[0][0], number=100)*10, 'ms')
print('find_first', timeit(lambda: find_first(x), number=100)*10, 'ms')
print('find_first_numba', timeit(lambda: find_first_numba(x), number=100)*10, 'ms')
print('---- NONE ----')
x[:] = 0
print('ndarray.nonzero', timeit(lambda: x.nonzero()[0], number=100)*10, 'ms')
print('find_first', timeit(lambda: find_first(x), number=100)*10, 'ms')
print('find_first_numba', timeit(lambda: find_first_numba(x), number=100)*10, 'ms')
print('---- ALL ----')
x[:] = 1
print('ndarray.nonzero', timeit(lambda: x.nonzero()[0][0], number=100)*10, 'ms')
print('find_first', timeit(lambda: find_first(x), number=100)*10, 'ms')
print('find_first_numba', timeit(lambda: find_first_numba(x), number=100)*10, 'ms')
And results on my machine:
---- FIRST ----
ndarray.nonzero 54.733994480002366 ms
find_first 0.0013148509997336078 ms
find_first_numba 0.0002839310000126716 ms
---- LAST ----
ndarray.nonzero 54.56336712999928 ms
find_first 25.38929685000312 ms
find_first_numba 8.022820680002951 ms
---- NONE ----
ndarray.nonzero 24.13432420999925 ms
find_first 25.345200140000088 ms
find_first_numba 8.154927100003988 ms
---- ALL ----
ndarray.nonzero 55.753537260002304 ms
find_first 0.0014760300018679118 ms
find_first_numba 0.0004358099977253005 ms
Pure ndarray.nonzero is definite looser. The numba solution is circa 5 times faster for the best case. It is circa 3 times faster in the worst case.
