Numpy: For every element in one array, find the index in another array

Question

I have two 1D arrays, x & y, one smaller than the other. I\'m trying to find the index of every element of y in x.

I\'ve found two naive ways to do this, the fir

Answer 1

As Joe Kington said, searchsorted() can search element very quickly. To deal with elements that are not in x, you can check the searched result with original y, and create a masked array:

import numpy as np
x = np.array([3,5,7,1,9,8,6,6])
y = np.array([2,1,5,10,100,6])

index = np.argsort(x)
sorted_x = x[index]
sorted_index = np.searchsorted(sorted_x, y)

yindex = np.take(index, sorted_index, mode="clip")
mask = x[yindex] != y

result = np.ma.array(yindex, mask=mask)
print result

the result is:

[-- 3 1 -- -- 6]