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Numpy
Numpy is the core library for scientific computing in Python. It provides a high-performance multidimensional array object and tools for working with these arrays. If you are already familiar with MATLAB, this will come easy to you.
NumPy is not just more efficient; it is also more convenient. You get a lot of vector and matrix operations for free, which sometimes allow one to avoid unnecessary work. And they are also efficiently implemented.
NumPy is often used along with packages like SciPy (Scientific Python) and Mat−plotlib (plotting library). This combination is widely used as a replacement for MatLab, a popular platform for technical computing. However, Python alternative to MatLab is now seen as a more modern and complete programming language.
It is open source, which is an added advantage of NumPy.
So this is just a really really brief look at (most of) the things you'll need to know about numpy. You may not use all of this, or at the same time you may use even more. Either way this crash course should get you started on the basics of numpy.
Each topic here is given here in a really brief manner. Try to make sense of it and the go and look it up online topic wise. Some good sources to learn numpy will be given at the bottom of the page.
Numpy is something that is really important to learn, not only for machine learning, but for data analytics in general and can also help in various other places.
So lets start!
Numpy arrays work somewhat similiar to python arrays when it comes to creating them. Some basic termninology we'll be using here is-
- Rank: The number of dimensions is called the rank of the array.
- Shape: The shape of an array is size of the array along each dimension.
We can initialize numpy arrays from nested Python lists, and access elements using square brackets:
import numpy as np
a = np.array([1, 2, 3]) # Create a rank 1 array
print(a.shape) # Prints "(3,)"
print(a[0], a[1], a[2]) # Prints "1 2 3"
a[0] = 5 # Change an element of the array
print(a) # Prints "[5, 2, 3]"
b = np.array([[1,2,3],[4,5,6]]) # Create a rank 2 array
print(b.shape) # Prints "(2, 3)"
print(b[0, 0], b[0, 1], b[1, 0]) # Prints "1 2 4"
Note- Notice how when creating a rank 1 array, the shape prints out to be (3, ) and not (3,1). Try to find out why.
Numpy allows us to create arrays of certain characteristics easily, such as-
import numpy as np
a = np.zeros((2,2)) # Create an array of all zeros
print(a) # Prints "[[ 0. 0.]
# [ 0. 0.]]"
b = np.ones((1,2)) # Create an array of all ones
print(b) # Prints "[[ 1. 1.]]"
c = np.full((2,2), 7) # Create a constant array
print(c) # Prints "[[ 7. 7.]
# [ 7. 7.]]"
d = np.eye(2) # Create a 2x2 identity matrix
print(d) # Prints "[[ 1. 0.]
# [ 0. 1.]]"
e = np.random.random((2,2)) # Create an array filled with random values
print(e) # Might print "[[ 0.91940167 0.08143941]
# [ 0.68744134 0.87236687]]"
One final feature that we'll discuss about is how Numpy lets us create NumpyArrays from normal python arrays, like this.
x = [1,2,3]
a = np.asarray(x)
print(type(x)) #Prints "<class 'list'>"
print(type(a)) #Prints "<class 'numpy.ndarray'>"
print(a) #Prints "[1,2,3]"
Here, The type function just tells us what the given object is.
Every numpy array is a grid of elements of the same type. Numpy provides a large set of numeric datatypes that you can use to construct arrays. Numpy tries to guess a datatype when you create an array, but functions that construct arrays usually also include an optional argument to explicitly specify the datatype. Here is an example:
import numpy as np
x = np.array([1, 2]) # Let numpy choose the datatype
print(x.dtype) # Prints "int64"
x = np.array([1.0, 2.0]) # Let numpy choose the datatype
print(x.dtype) # Prints "float64"
x = np.array([1, 2], dtype=np.int64) # Force a particular datatype
print(x.dtype) # Prints "int64"
Basic mathematical functions operate elementwise on arrays, and are available both as operator overloads and as functions in the numpy module:
import numpy as np
x = np.array([[1,2],[3,4]], dtype=np.float64)
y = np.array([[5,6],[7,8]], dtype=np.float64)
# Elementwise sum; both produce the array
# [[ 6.0 8.0]
# [10.0 12.0]]
print(x + y)
print(np.add(x, y))
# Elementwise difference; both produce the array
# [[-4.0 -4.0]
# [-4.0 -4.0]]
print(x - y)
print(np.subtract(x, y))
# Elementwise product; both produce the array
# [[ 5.0 12.0]
# [21.0 32.0]]
print(x * y)
print(np.multiply(x, y))
# Elementwise division; both produce the array
# [[ 0.2 0.33333333]
# [ 0.42857143 0.5 ]]
print(x / y)
print(np.divide(x, y))
# Elementwise square root; produces the array
# [[ 1. 1.41421356]
# [ 1.73205081 2. ]]
print(np.sqrt(x))
Note that unlike MATLAB, * is elementwise multiplication, not matrix multiplication. We instead use the dot function to compute inner products of vectors, to multiply a vector by a matrix, and to multiply matrices. dot is available both as a function in the numpy module and as an instance method of array objects:
import numpy as np
x = np.array([[1,2],[3,4]])
y = np.array([[5,6],[7,8]])
v = np.array([9,10])
w = np.array([11, 12])
# Inner product of vectors; both produce 219
print(v.dot(w))
print(np.dot(v, w))
# Matrix / vector product; both produce the rank 1 array [29 67]
print(x.dot(v))
print(np.dot(x, v))
# Matrix / matrix product; both produce the rank 2 array
# [[19 22]
# [43 50]]
print(x.dot(y))
print(np.dot(x, y))
Numpy provides many useful functions for performing computations on arrays; one of the most useful is sum:
import numpy as np
x = np.array([[1,2],[3,4]])
print(np.sum(x)) # Compute sum of all elements; prints "10"
print(np.sum(x, axis=0)) # Compute sum of each column; prints "[4 6]"
print(np.sum(x, axis=1)) # Compute sum of each row; prints "[3 7]"
Apart from computing mathematical functions using arrays, we frequently need to reshape or otherwise manipulate data in arrays. The simplest example of this type of operation is transposing a matrix; to transpose a matrix, simply use the T attribute of an array object:
import numpy as np
x = np.array([[1,2], [3,4]])
print(x) # Prints "[[1 2]
# [3 4]]"
print(x.T) # Prints "[[1 3]
# [2 4]]"
# Note that taking the transpose of a rank 1 array does nothing:
v = np.array([1,2,3])
print(v) # Prints "[1 2 3]"
print(v.T) # Prints "[1 2 3]"
Numpy offers several ways to index into arrays.
Slicing: Similar to Python lists, numpy arrays can be sliced. Since arrays may be multidimensional, you must specify a slice for each dimension of the array:
import numpy as np
# Create the following rank 2 array with shape (3, 4)
# [[ 1 2 3 4]
# [ 5 6 7 8]
# [ 9 10 11 12]]
a = np.array([[1,2,3,4], [5,6,7,8], [9,10,11,12]])
# Use slicing to pull out the subarray consisting of the first 2 rows
# and columns 1 and 2; b is the following array of shape (2, 2):
# [[2 3]
# [6 7]]
b = a[:2, 1:3]
# A slice of an array is a view into the same data, so modifying it
# will modify the original array.
print(a[0, 1]) # Prints "2"
b[0, 0] = 77 # b[0, 0] is the same piece of data as a[0, 1]
print(a[0, 1]) # Prints "77"
You can also mix integer indexing with slice indexing. However, doing so will yield an array of lower rank than the original array. Note that this is quite different from the way that MATLAB handles array slicing:
import numpy as np
# Create the following rank 2 array with shape (3, 4)
# [[ 1 2 3 4]
# [ 5 6 7 8]
# [ 9 10 11 12]]
a = np.array([[1,2,3,4], [5,6,7,8], [9,10,11,12]])
# Two ways of accessing the data in the middle row of the array.
# Mixing integer indexing with slices yields an array of lower rank,
# while using only slices yields an array of the same rank as the
# original array:
row_r1 = a[1, :] # Rank 1 view of the second row of a
row_r2 = a[1:2, :] # Rank 2 view of the second row of a
print(row_r1, row_r1.shape) # Prints "[5 6 7 8] (4,)"
print(row_r2, row_r2.shape) # Prints "[[5 6 7 8]] (1, 4)"
# We can make the same distinction when accessing columns of an array:
col_r1 = a[:, 1]
col_r2 = a[:, 1:2]
print(col_r1, col_r1.shape) # Prints "[ 2 6 10] (3,)"
print(col_r2, col_r2.shape) # Prints "[[ 2]
# [ 6]
# [10]] (3, 1)"
Integer array indexing: When you index into numpy arrays using slicing, the resulting array view will always be a subarray of the original array. In contrast, integer array indexing allows you to construct arbitrary arrays using the data from another array. Here is an example:
import numpy as np
a = np.array([[1,2], [3, 4], [5, 6]])
# An example of integer array indexing.
# The returned array will have shape (3,) and
print(a[[0, 1, 2], [0, 1, 0]]) # Prints "[1 4 5]"
# The above example of integer array indexing is equivalent to this:
print(np.array([a[0, 0], a[1, 1], a[2, 0]])) # Prints "[1 4 5]"
# When using integer array indexing, you can reuse the same
# element from the source array:
print(a[[0, 0], [1, 1]]) # Prints "[2 2]"
# Equivalent to the previous integer array indexing example
print(np.array([a[0, 1], a[0, 1]])) # Prints "[2 2]"
One useful trick with integer array indexing is selecting or mutating one element from each row of a matrix:
import numpy as np
# Create a new array from which we will select elements
a = np.array([[1,2,3], [4,5,6], [7,8,9], [10, 11, 12]])
print(a) # prints "array([[ 1, 2, 3],
# [ 4, 5, 6],
# [ 7, 8, 9],
# [10, 11, 12]])"
# Create an array of indices
b = np.array([0, 2, 0, 1])
# Select one element from each row of a using the indices in b
print(a[np.arange(4), b]) # Prints "[ 1 6 7 11]"
# Mutate one element from each row of a using the indices in b
a[np.arange(4), b] += 10
print(a) # prints "array([[11, 2, 3],
# [ 4, 5, 16],
# [17, 8, 9],
# [10, 21, 12]]
We can change the dimensions of a matrix by using the reshape function, which works like this:
import numpy as np
a = np.arange(8)
print(a) #Prints [0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7]
b = a.reshape(4,2)
print(b) #Prints [[0 1]
# [2 3]
# [4 5]
# [6 7]]
Make sure you go ahead and check some of these sources out for more detailed descriptions of all the topics given in this tutorial.
For now you can skip whatever topic is not given above.
Practice is recommended.