Moving average or running mean

Question

Is there a SciPy function or NumPy function or module for Python that calculates the running mean of a 1D array given a specific window?

Answer 1

Python standard library solution

This generator-function takes an iterable and a window size N and yields the average over the current values inside the window. It uses a deque, which is a datastructure similar to a list, but optimized for fast modifications (pop, append) at both endpoints.

from collections import deque
from itertools import islice

def sliding_avg(iterable, N):        
    it = iter(iterable)
    window = deque(islice(it, N))        
    num_vals = len(window)

    if num_vals < N:
        msg = 'window size {} exceeds total number of values {}'
        raise ValueError(msg.format(N, num_vals))

    N = float(N) # force floating point division if using Python 2
    s = sum(window)
    
    while True:
        yield s/N
        try:
            nxt = next(it)
        except StopIteration:
            break
        s = s - window.popleft() + nxt
        window.append(nxt)
        

Here is the function in action:

>>> values = range(100)
>>> N = 5
>>> window_avg = sliding_avg(values, N)
>>> 
>>> next(window_avg) # (0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4)/5
>>> 2.0
>>> next(window_avg) # (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5)/5
>>> 3.0
>>> next(window_avg) # (2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6)/5
>>> 4.0