[EMAIL PROTECTED] asked:
>I am trying to divide the columns of a matrix by the first row in the
>matrix.
Dividing columns of a matrix by a vector is a pretty fundamental
operation, and the query resulted in a large number of suggestions:
x/matrix(v, nrow(x), ncol(x), byrow = TRUE))
sweep(x, 2, v, "/")
x / rep(v, each = nrow(x))
x / outer(rep(1, nrow(x)), v)
x %*% diag(1/v)
t(apply(x, 1, function(x) x/v))
x/rep(v, each=nrow(x))
t(apply(x, 1, "/", v))
library(reshape); iapply(x, 1, "/", v) # R only
t(t(x)/v)
scale(x, center = FALSE, v) # not previously suggested
It is unsatisfactory when such a fundamental operation is
done in so many different ways.
* It makes it hard to read other people's code.
* Some of these are very inefficient.
I propose to create standard functions and possibly operator forms
for this and similar operators:
colPlus(x, v) x %c+% v
colMinus(x, v) x %c-% v
colTimes(x, v) x %c*% v
colDivide(x, v) x %c/% v
colPower(x, v) x %c^% v
Goals are:
* more readable code
* generic functions, with methods for objects such as data frames
and S-PLUS bigdata objects (this would be for both S-PLUS and R)
* efficiency -- use the fastest of the above methods, or drop to C
to avoid replicating v.
* allow error checking (that length of v matches number of columns of x)
I'd like feedback (to me, I'll summarize for the list) on:
* the suggestion in general
* are names like "colPlus" OK, or do you have other suggestions?
* create both functions and operators, or just the functions?
* should there be similar operations for rows?
Note: similar operations for rows are not usually needed, because
x * v # e.g. where v = colMeans(x)
is equivalent to (but faster than)
x * rep(v, length = length(x))
The advantage would be that
colTimes(x, v)
could throw an error if length(v) != nrow(x)
Tim Hesterberg
P.S. Of the suggestions, my preference is
a / rep(v, each=nrow(a))
It was to support this and similar +-*^ operations that I originally
added the "each" argument to rep.
========================================================
| Tim Hesterberg Research Scientist |
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] Insightful Corp. |
| (206)802-2319 1700 Westlake Ave. N, Suite 500 |
| (206)283-8691 (fax) Seattle, WA 98109-3044, U.S.A. |
| www.insightful.com/Hesterberg |
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