Re: [Q]: ID analog to FORTRAN "sign" function

["Dick Jackson" <dick(at)d-jackson.com>]

Phillip David wrote:
> Dick Jackson wrote:
> >
> > Do I dare offer one more? Subscript lookups seem faster than arithmetic
> > operations, making this one faster, more compact and no less cryptic!
:-)
> >
> >     Return, Abs(a) * ([-1, 1])[b GE 0]
>
> to which I reply:
>
> If this one really works, then why not go even one step further?
>
> Return, ([-Abs(a), Abs(a)])[b GE 0]
>
> or
>
> Return, ([a, -a])[(a*b) LT 0]

Right, these would work fine for scalar a and b, with negligible time taken
in any case. I was looking for the most efficient way when we need this to
work on large arrays a and b.

About the 1 vs 1.0 debate, Mark Hadfield wrote:
> I think that's a little *too* clever. I just tried multiplying a float
array
> with 10^7 elements by 1 and then by 1.0. Time taken = 0.52 seconds in both
> cases.

This is getting interesting. For reference, here are a couple of handy timer
routines I use:

;---

PRO TStart ; Timer Start
; Save current time for use by TReport
COMMON Timer, t0
t0 = SysTime(1)
END

;---

PRO TReport ; Timer Report
; Print elapsed time since last TStart
COMMON Timer, t0
Print, Format='(D10.3," seconds.")',SysTime(1)-t0
END

;---

Here's some testing runs from my Win2000 PC:

IDL> a=randomu(seed,1000000)-0.5
IDL> b=randomu(seed,1000000)-0.5
IDL> tstart & for i=1,10 do c=Abs(a) * ([-1, 1])[b GE 0] & treport
     3.250 seconds.
IDL> tstart & for i=1,10 do c1=Abs(a) * ([-1.0, 1.0])[b GE 0] & treport
     2.813 seconds.

I think the time saving here is not in the multiplying itself, but in the
time building an integer array, then converting it to float. In this case
it's 10^6 ones/minus-ones, perhaps in your case it was converting only a
single 1 to 1.0, then multiplying it.

Fascinating, isn't it? I'd be happy to hear further refinements!

Cheers,
--
-Dick

Dick Jackson                     /         dick@d-jackson.com
D-Jackson Software Consulting   /    http://www.d-jackson.com
Calgary, Alberta, Canada       /   Voice/Fax: +1-403-242-7398