How to convert Array{Array{Float64, 1}, 1} to Matrix in julia?

Question

Let's say I have input of this kind:

> [[0.8681299566762923,-0.3472589826095631], [3.2300860990307445,3.3731249077464946]]

How can I convert it to more pleasant type like Matrix (knowing dimensions)?

Answer 1

You can use splatting (...) and hcat to get what you are after:

julia> a = Vector[[0.8681299566762923,-0.3472589826095631], [3.2300860990307445,3.3731249077464946]]
2-element Array{Array{T,1},1}:
 [0.8681299566762923,-0.3472589826095631]
 [3.2300860990307445,3.3731249077464946]

julia> hcat(a...)
2x2 Array{Float64,2}:
  0.86813   3.23009
 -0.347259  3.37312

Or if you wanted stop stack as rows instead of columns you could do the following:

julia> vcat(map(x->x', a)...)
2x2 Array{Float64,2}:
 0.86813  -0.347259
 3.23009   3.37312

I don't recommend building a Matrix row by row as that is in conflict with Julia's column major array layout. For larger matrices it is actually more efficient to stack as columns and transpose the output:

julia> a2 = Vector{Float64}[rand(10) for i=1:5000];

julia> stackrows1{T}(a::Vector{Vector{T}}) = vcat(map(transpose, a)...)::Matrix{T}
stackrows1 (generic function with 2 methods)

julia> stackrows2{T}(a::Vector{Vector{T}}) = hcat(a...)'::Matrix{T}
stackrows2 (generic function with 2 methods)

julia> stackrows1(a2) == stackrows2(a2)  # run once to compile and make sure functions do the same thing
true

julia> @time for i=1:100 stackrows1(a2); end
elapsed time: 0.142792896 seconds (149 MB allocated, 7.85% gc time in 7 pauses with 0 full sweep)

julia> @time for i=1:100 stackrows2(a2); end
elapsed time: 0.05213114 seconds (88 MB allocated, 12.60% gc time in 4 pauses with 0 full sweep)