How to index a vector sequence within a vector sequence

Question

I have a solution to a problem that involves looping, and works, but I feel I am missing something that involves a more efficient implementation. The problem: I have a numeric vector sequence, and want to identify the starting position(s) in another vector of the first vector.

It works like this:

# helper function for matchSequence
# wraps a vector by removing the first n elements and padding end with NAs
wrapVector <- function(x, n) {
    stopifnot(n <= length(x))
    if (n == length(x)) 
        return(rep(NA, n))
    else
        return(c(x[(n+1):length(x)], rep(NA, n)))
}

wrapVector(LETTERS[1:5], 1)
## [1] "B" "C" "D" "E" NA
wrapVector(LETTERS[1:5], 2)
## [1] "C" "D" "E" NA  NA

# returns the starting index positions of the sequence found in a vector
matchSequence <- function(seq, vec) {
    matches <- seq[1] == vec
    if (length(seq) == 1) return(which(matches))
    for (i in 2:length(seq)) {
        matches <- cbind(matches, seq[i] == wrapVector(vec, i - 1))
    }
    which(rowSums(matches) == i)
}

myVector <- c(3, NA, 1, 2, 4, 1, 1, 2)
matchSequence(1:2, myVector)
## [1] 3 7
matchSequence(c(4, 1, 1), myVector)
## [1] 5
matchSequence(1:3, myVector)
## integer(0)

Is there a better way to implement matchSequence() ?

Added

"Better" here can mean using more elegant methods I didn't think of, but even better, would mean faster. Try comparing solutions to:

set.seed(100)
myVector2 <- sample(c(NA, 1:4), size = 1000, replace = TRUE)
matchSequence(c(4, 1, 1), myVector2)
## [1]  12  48  91 120 252 491 499 590 697 771 865

microbenchmark::microbenchmark(matchSequence(c(4, 1, 1), myVector2))
## Unit: microseconds
##                                 expr     min       lq     mean   median       uq     max naval
## matchSequence(c(4, 1, 1), myVector2) 154.346 160.7335 174.4533 166.2635 176.5845 300.453   100

Answer 1

Here's a somewhat different idea:

f <- function(seq, vec) {
    mm <- t(embed(vec, length(seq))) == rev(seq)  ## relies on recycling of seq
    which(apply(mm, 2, all))
}

myVector <- c(3, NA, 1, 2, 4, 1, 1, 2)

f(1:2, myVector)
# [1] 3 7
f(c(4,1,1), myVector)
# [1] 5
f(1:3, myVector)
# integer(0)

Answer 2

And a recursive idea (edit on Feb 5 '16 to work with NA s in pattern) :

find_pat = function(pat, x) 
{
    ff = function(.pat, .x, acc = if(length(.pat)) seq_along(.x) else integer(0L)) {
        if(!length(.pat)) return(acc)

        if(is.na(.pat[[1L]])) 
            Recall(.pat[-1L], .x, acc[which(is.na(.x[acc]))] + 1L)
        else 
            Recall(.pat[-1L], .x, acc[which(.pat[[1L]] == .x[acc])] + 1L)
    }

    return(ff(pat, x) - length(pat))
}  

find_pat(1:2, myVector)
#[1] 3 7
find_pat(c(4, 1, 1), myVector)
#[1] 5
find_pat(1:3, myVector)
#integer(0)
find_pat(c(NA, 1), myVector)
#[1] 2
find_pat(c(3, NA), myVector)
#[1] 1

And on a benchmark:

all.equal(matchSequence(s, my_vec2), find_pat(s, my_vec2))
#[1] TRUE
microbenchmark::microbenchmark(matchSequence(s, my_vec2), 
                               flm(s, my_vec2), 
                               find_pat(s, my_vec2), 
                               unit = "relative")
#Unit: relative
#                      expr      min       lq   median       uq      max neval
# matchSequence(s, my_vec2) 2.970888 3.096573 3.068802 3.023167 12.41387   100
#           flm(s, my_vec2) 1.140777 1.173043 1.258394 1.280753 12.79848   100
#      find_pat(s, my_vec2) 1.000000 1.000000 1.000000 1.000000  1.00000   100

Using larger data:

set.seed(911); VEC = sample(c(NA, 1:3), 1e6, TRUE); PAT = c(3, 2, 2, 1, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 3)
all.equal(matchSequence(PAT, VEC), find_pat(PAT, VEC))
#[1] TRUE
microbenchmark::microbenchmark(matchSequence(PAT, VEC), 
                               flm(PAT, VEC), 
                               find_pat(PAT, VEC), 
                               unit = "relative", times = 20)
#Unit: relative
#                    expr       min       lq    median        uq       max neval
# matchSequence(PAT, VEC) 23.106862 20.54601 19.831344 18.677528 12.563634    20
#           flm(PAT, VEC)  2.810611  2.51955  2.963352  2.877195  1.728512    20
#      find_pat(PAT, VEC)  1.000000  1.00000  1.000000  1.000000  1.000000    20

Answer 3

Another idea:

match_seq2 <- function(s,v){
  n  = length(s)
  nc = length(v)-n+1
  which(
    n == rowsum(
      as.integer(v[ rep(0:(n-1), nc) + rep(1:nc, each=n) ] == s),
      rep(seq(nc),each=n)
    )
  )
}

I tried a tapply version, but it was ~4x as slow.

---

First idea:

match_seq <- function(s, v) Filter( 
  function(i) all.equal( s, v[i + seq_along(s) - 1] ), 
  which( v == s[1] )
) 

# examples:
my_vec <- c(3, NA, 1, 2, 4, 1, 1, 2)
match_seq(1:2, my_vec)      # 3 7
match_seq(c(4,1,1), my_vec) # 5
match_seq(1:3, my_vec)      # integer(0)

I'm using all.equal instead of identical because the OP wants integer 1:2 to match numeric c(1,2) . This approach introduces one more case by allowing for matching against points beyond the end of my_vec (which are NA when indexed):

match_seq(c(1,2,NA), my_vec) # 7

---

The OP's benchmark

# variant on Josh's, suggested by OP:

f2 <- function(seq, vec) {
    mm <- t(embed(vec, length(seq))) == rev(seq)  ## relies on recycling of seq
    which(colSums(mm)==length(seq))
}

my_check <- function(values) {
  all(sapply(values[-1], function(x) identical(values[[1]], x)))
}

set.seed(100)
my_vec2 <- sample(c(NA, 1:4), size = 1000, replace = TRUE)
s       <- c(4,1,1)
microbenchmark(
    op = matchSequence(s, my_vec2), 
    josh = f(s, my_vec2), 
    josh2 = f2(s, my_vec2), 
    frank = match_seq(s, my_vec2), 
    frank2 = match_seq2(s, my_vec2), 
    jlh = matchSequence2(s, my_vec2),
    tlm = flm(s, my_vec2),
    alexis = find_pat(s, my_vec2),
    unit = "relative", check=my_check)

Results:

Unit: relative
   expr        min         lq       mean     median         uq        max neval
     op   3.693609   3.505168   3.222532   3.481452   3.433955  1.9204263   100
   josh  15.670380  14.756374  12.617934  14.612219  14.575440  3.1076794   100
  josh2   3.115586   2.937810   2.602087   2.903687   2.905654  1.1927951   100
  frank 171.824973 157.711299 129.820601 158.304789 155.009037 15.8087792   100
 frank2   9.352514   8.769373   7.364126   8.607341   8.415083  1.9386370   100
    jlh 215.304342 197.643641 166.450118 196.657527 200.126846 44.1745551   100
    tlm   1.277462   1.323832   1.125965   1.333331   1.379717  0.2375295   100
 alexis   1.000000   1.000000   1.000000   1.000000   1.000000  1.0000000   100

So alexis_laz's wins!

(Feel free to update this. See alexis' answer for an additional benchmark.)

Answer 4

Another attempt which I believe is quicker again. This owes its speed to only checking for matches from points in the vector which match the start of the searched-for sequence.

flm <- function(sq, vec) {
  hits <- which(sq[1]==vec)
  out <- hits[
    colSums(outer(0:(length(sq)-1), hits, function(x,y) vec[x+y]) == sq)==length(sq)
  ]
  out[!is.na(out)]
}

Benchmark results:

#Unit: relative
#  expr      min       lq     mean   median       uq     max neval
# josh2 2.469769 2.393794 2.181521 2.353438 2.345911 1.51641   100
#    lm 1.000000 1.000000 1.000000 1.000000 1.000000 1.00000   100

Answer 5

Here's another way:

myVector <- c(3, NA, 1, 2, 4, 1, 1, 2)
matchSequence <- function(seq,vec) {
  n.vec <- length(vec)
  n.seq <- length(seq)
  which(sapply(1:(n.vec-n.seq+1),function(i)all(head(vec[i:n.vec],n.seq)==seq)))
}
matchSequence(1:2,myVector)
# [1] 3 7
matchSequence(c(4,1,1),myVector)
# [1] 5
matchSequence(1:3,myVector)
# integer(0)