How do I get indices of N maximum values in a NumPy array?

Question

NumPy proposes a way to get the index of the maximum value of an array via np.argmax.

I would like a similar thing, but returning the indexes of the

Answer 1

Three Answers Compared For Coding Ease And Speed

Speed was important for my needs, so I tested three answers to this question.

Code from those three answers was modified as needed for my specific case.

I then compared the speed of each method.

Coding wise:

1. NPE's answer was the next most elegant and adequately fast for my needs.
2. Fred Foos answer required the most refactoring for my needs but was the fastest. I went with this answer, because even though it took more work, it was not too bad and had significant speed advantages.
3. off99555's answer was the most elegant, but it is the slowest.

Complete Code for Test and Comparisons

import numpy as np
import time
import random
import sys
from operator import itemgetter
from heapq import nlargest

''' Fake Data Setup '''
a1 = list(range(1000000))
random.shuffle(a1)
a1 = np.array(a1)

''' ################################################ '''
''' NPE's Answer Modified A Bit For My Case '''
t0 = time.time()
indices = np.flip(np.argsort(a1))[:5]
results = []
for index in indices:
    results.append((index, a1[index]))
t1 = time.time()
print("NPE's Answer:")
print(results)
print(t1 - t0)
print()

''' Fred Foos Answer Modified A Bit For My Case'''
t0 = time.time()
indices = np.argpartition(a1, -6)[-5:]
results = []
for index in indices:
    results.append((a1[index], index))
results.sort(reverse=True)
results = [(b, a) for a, b in results]
t1 = time.time()
print("Fred Foo's Answer:")
print(results)
print(t1 - t0)
print()

''' off99555's Answer - No Modification Needed For My Needs '''
t0 = time.time()
result = nlargest(5, enumerate(a1), itemgetter(1))
t1 = time.time()
print("off99555's Answer:")
print(result)
print(t1 - t0)

Output with Speed Reports

NPE's Answer:
[(631934, 999999), (788104, 999998), (413003, 999997), (536514, 999996), (81029, 999995)]
0.1349949836730957

Fred Foo's Answer:
[(631934, 999999), (788104, 999998), (413003, 999997), (536514, 999996), (81029, 999995)]
0.011161565780639648

off99555's Answer:
[(631934, 999999), (788104, 999998), (413003, 999997), (536514, 999996), (81029, 999995)]
0.439760684967041