Fastest way to calculate difference in all columns

Question

I have a dataframe of all float columns. For example:

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd

df = pd.DataFrame(np.arange(12.0).reshape(3,4), columns=list(\'         


        

Answer 1

Listed in this post are two NumPy approaches for performance - One would be fully vectorized approach and another with one loop.

Approach #1

def numpy_triu1(df):          
    a = df.values
    r,c = np.triu_indices(a.shape[1],1)
    cols = df.columns
    nm = [cols[i]+"_"+cols[j] for i,j in zip(r,c)]
    return pd.DataFrame(a[:,r] - a[:,c], columns=nm)

Sample run -

In [72]: df
Out[72]: 
     A    B     C     D
0  0.0  1.0   2.0   3.0
1  4.0  5.0   6.0   7.0
2  8.0  9.0  10.0  11.0

In [78]: numpy_triu(df)
Out[78]: 
   A_B  A_C  A_D  B_C  B_D  C_D
0 -1.0 -2.0 -3.0 -1.0 -2.0 -1.0
1 -1.0 -2.0 -3.0 -1.0 -2.0 -1.0
2 -1.0 -2.0 -3.0 -1.0 -2.0 -1.0

Approach #2

If we are okay with array as output or dataframe without specialized column names, here's another -

def pairwise_col_diffs(a): # a would df.values
    n = a.shape[1]
    N = n*(n-1)//2
    idx = np.concatenate(( [0], np.arange(n-1,0,-1).cumsum() ))
    start, stop = idx[:-1], idx[1:]
    out = np.empty((a.shape[0],N),dtype=a.dtype)
    for j,i in enumerate(range(n-1)):
        out[:, start[j]:stop[j]] = a[:,i,None] - a[:,i+1:]
    return out

---

Runtime test

Since OP has mentioned that multi-dim array output would work for them as well, here are the array based approaches from other author(s) -

# @Allen's soln
def Allen(arr):
    n = arr.shape[1]
    idx = np.asarray(list(itertools.combinations(range(n),2))).T
    return arr[:,idx[0]]-arr[:,idx[1]]

# @DYZ's soln
def DYZ(arr):
    result = np.concatenate([(arr.T - arr.T[x])[x+1:] \
            for x in range(arr.shape[1])]).T
    return result

pandas based solution from @Gerges Dib's post wasn't included as it came out very slow as compared to others.

Timings -

We will use three dataset sizes - 100, 500 and 1000 :

In [118]: df = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randint(0,9,(3,100)))
     ...: a = df.values
     ...: 

In [119]: %timeit DYZ(a)
     ...: %timeit Allen(a)
     ...: %timeit pairwise_col_diffs(a)
     ...: 
1000 loops, best of 3: 258 µs per loop
1000 loops, best of 3: 1.48 ms per loop
1000 loops, best of 3: 284 µs per loop

In [121]: df = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randint(0,9,(3,500)))
     ...: a = df.values
     ...: 

In [122]: %timeit DYZ(a)
     ...: %timeit Allen(a)
     ...: %timeit pairwise_col_diffs(a)
     ...: 
100 loops, best of 3: 2.56 ms per loop
10 loops, best of 3: 39.9 ms per loop
1000 loops, best of 3: 1.82 ms per loop

In [123]: df = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randint(0,9,(3,1000)))
     ...: a = df.values
     ...: 

In [124]: %timeit DYZ(a)
     ...: %timeit Allen(a)
     ...: %timeit pairwise_col_diffs(a)
     ...: 
100 loops, best of 3: 8.61 ms per loop
10 loops, best of 3: 167 ms per loop
100 loops, best of 3: 5.09 ms per loop