Introduction to proposed solution and Code
Proposed here is a bsxfun based masking approach that uses the binary operators available as builtins for use with bsxfun and as such I would consider this very appropriate for problems like this. Of course, you must also be aware that bsxfun is a memory hungry tool. So, it could pose a threat if you are dealing with maybe billions of elements depending also on the memory available for MATLAB's usage.
Getting into the details of the proposed approach, we get the counts of each ID from column-1 of the input with histc. Then, the magic happens with bsxfun + @le to create a mask of positions in the output array (initialized by zeros) that are to be filled by the column-2 elements from input. That's all you need to tackle the problem with this approach.
Solution Code
counts = histc(in(:,1),1:max(in(:,1)))'; %//' counts of each ID from column1
max_counts = max(counts); %// Maximum counts for each ID
mask = bsxfun(@le,[1:max_counts]',counts); %//'# mask of locations where
%// column2 elements are to be placed
out = zeros(max_counts,numel(counts)); %// Initialize the output array
out(mask) = in(:,2); %// place the column2 elements in the output array
Benchmarking (for performance)
The benchmarking presented here compares the proposed solution in this post against the various methods presented in Luis's solution. This skips the original loopy approach presented in the problem as it appeared to be very slow for the input generated in the benchmarking code.
Benchmarking Code
num_ids = 5000;
counts_each_id = randi([10 100],num_ids,1);
num_runs = 20; %// number of iterations each approach is run for
%// Generate random input array
in = [];
for k = 1:num_ids
in = [in ; [repmat(k,counts_each_id(k),1) rand(counts_each_id(k),1)]];
end
%// Warm up tic/toc.
for k = 1:50000
tic(); elapsed = toc();
end
disp('------------- With HISTC + BSXFUN Masking approach')
tic
for iter = 1:num_runs
counts = histc(in(:,1),1:max(in(:,1)))';
max_counts = max(counts);
out = zeros(max_counts,numel(counts));
out(bsxfun(@le,[1:max_counts]',counts)) = in(:,2);
end
toc
clear counts max_counts out
disp('------------- With MODE + ACCUMARRAY approach')
tic
for iter = 1:num_runs
[~, n] = mode(in(:,1)); %//step 1
out = accumarray(in(:,1), in(:,2), [], @(x){[x; zeros(n-numel(x),1)]}); %//step 2
out = [out{:}];
end
toc
clear n out
disp('------------- With HISTC + ACCUMARRAY approach')
tic
for iter = 1:num_runs
n = max(histc(in(:,1), unique(in(:,1))));
out = accumarray(in(:,1), in(:,2), [], @(x){[x; zeros(n-numel(x),1)]}); %//step 2
out = [out{:}];
end
toc
clear n out
disp('------------- With ARRAYFUN + Sparse approach')
tic
for iter = 1:num_runs
a = arrayfun(@(x)(1:x), diff(find([1,diff(in(:,1).'),1])), 'uni', 0); %//'
out = full(sparse([a{:}], in(:,1), in(:,2)));
end
toc
clear a out
Results
------------- With HISTC + BSXFUN Masking approach
Elapsed time is 0.598359 seconds.
------------- With MODE + ACCUMARRAY approach
Elapsed time is 2.452778 seconds.
------------- With HISTC + ACCUMARRAY approach
Elapsed time is 2.579482 seconds.
------------- With ARRAYFUN + Sparse approach
Elapsed time is 1.455362 seconds.
