R: matrix to indexes

Question

I have a matrix like

      [,1] [,2]
 [1,]    1    3
 [2,]    4    6
 [3,]   11   12
 [4,]   13   14

I want to convert this matrix to a vector

Answer 1

Throwing this one here, it uses base R and should be somewhat fast since the inevitable loop is handled by rep:

zero.lengths <- m[,1] - c(0, head(m[,2], -1)) - 1
one.lengths  <- m[,2] - m[,1] + 1

rep(rep(c(0, 1), nrow(m)),
    as.vector(rbind(zero.lengths, one.lengths)))

Or another solution using sequence:

out <- integer(m[length(m)])    # or `integer(20)` following OP's edit.
one.starts  <- m[,1]
one.lengths <- m[,2] - m[,1] + 1
one.idx <- sequence(one.lengths) + rep(one.starts, one.lengths) - 1L
out[one.idx] <- 1L