what is the most efficient way to find the position of the first np.nan value?

Question

consider the array a

a = np.array([3, 3, np.nan, 3, 3, np.nan])

I could do

np.isnan(a).argmax()

Answer 1

It might also be worth to look into numba.jit; without it, the vectorized version will likely beat a straight-forward pure-Python search in most scenarios, but after compiling the code, the ordinary search will take the lead, at least in my testing:

In [63]: a = np.array([np.nan if i % 10000 == 9999 else 3 for i in range(100000)])

In [70]: %paste
import numba

def naive(a):
        for i in range(len(a)):
                if np.isnan(a[i]):
                        return i

def short(a):
        return np.isnan(a).argmax()

@numba.jit
def naive_jit(a):
        for i in range(len(a)):
                if np.isnan(a[i]):
                        return i

@numba.jit
def short_jit(a):
        return np.isnan(a).argmax()
## -- End pasted text --

In [71]: %timeit naive(a)
100 loops, best of 3: 7.22 ms per loop

In [72]: %timeit short(a)
The slowest run took 4.59 times longer than the fastest. This could mean that an intermediate result is being cached.
10000 loops, best of 3: 37.7 µs per loop

In [73]: %timeit naive_jit(a)
The slowest run took 6821.16 times longer than the fastest. This could mean that an intermediate result is being cached.
100000 loops, best of 3: 6.79 µs per loop

In [74]: %timeit short_jit(a)
The slowest run took 395.51 times longer than the fastest. This could mean that an intermediate result is being cached.
10000 loops, best of 3: 144 µs per loop

Edit: As pointed out by @hpaulj in their answer, numpy actually ships with an optimized short-circuited search whose performance is comparable with the JITted search above:

In [26]: %paste
def plain(a):
        return a.argmax()

@numba.jit
def plain_jit(a):
        return a.argmax()
## -- End pasted text --

In [35]: %timeit naive(a)
100 loops, best of 3: 7.13 ms per loop

In [36]: %timeit plain(a)
The slowest run took 4.37 times longer than the fastest. This could mean that an intermediate result is being cached.
100000 loops, best of 3: 7.04 µs per loop

In [37]: %timeit naive_jit(a)
100000 loops, best of 3: 6.91 µs per loop

In [38]: %timeit plain_jit(a)
10000 loops, best of 3: 125 µs per loop