Find nearest value in numpy array

Question

Is there a numpy-thonic way, e.g. function, to find the nearest value in an array?

Example:

np.find_nearest( array, value )

Answer 1

Here's a version that will handle a non-scalar "values" array:

import numpy as np

def find_nearest(array, values):
    indices = np.abs(np.subtract.outer(array, values)).argmin(0)
    return array[indices]

Or a version that returns a numeric type (e.g. int, float) if the input is scalar:

def find_nearest(array, values):
    values = np.atleast_1d(values)
    indices = np.abs(np.subtract.outer(array, values)).argmin(0)
    out = array[indices]
    return out if len(out) > 1 else out[0]