We recently has a discussion regarding an optimization of NumPy's median
to average O(n) complexity. After some searching, I found out there is a
selection algorithm competitive in speed with Hoare's quick select. It
has the advantage of being a lot simpler to implement. In plain Python:
import numpy as np
def wirthselect(array, k):
""" Niklaus Wirth's selection algortithm """
a = np.ascontiguousarray(array)
if (a is array): a = a.copy()
l = 0
m = a.shape[0] - 1
while l < m:
x = a[k]
i = l
j = m
while 1:
while a[i] < x: i += 1
while x < a[j]: j -= 1
if i <= j:
tmp = a[i]
a[i] = a[j]
a[j] = tmp
i += 1
j -= 1
if i > j: break
if j < k: l = i
if k < i: m = j
return a
Now, the median can be obtained in average O(n) time as:
def median(x):
""" median in average O(n) time """
n = x.shape[0]
k = n >> 1
s = wirthselect(x, k)
if n & 1:
return s[k]
else:
return 0.5*(s[k]+s[:k].max())
The beauty of this is that Wirth select is extremely easy to migrate to
Cython:
import numpy
ctypedef numpy.double_t T # or whatever
def wirthselect(numpy.ndarray[T, ndim=1] array, int k):
cdef int i, j, l, m
cdef T x, tmp
cdef T *a
_array = np.ascontiguousarray(array)
if (_array is array): _array = _array.copy()
a =