Quickest way to find the nth largest value in a numpy Matrix

Question

There are lots of solutions to do this for a single array, but what about a matrix, such as:

>>> k
array([[ 35,  48,  63],
       [ 60,  77,  96],
          


        

Answer 1

As said, np.partition should be faster (at most O(n) running time):

np.partition(k.flatten(), -2)[-2]

should return the 2nd largest element. (partition guarantees that the numbered element is in position, all elements before are smaller, and all behind are bigger).