Is there a NumPy function to return the first index of something in an array?

Question

I know there is a method for a Python list to return the first index of something:

>>> l = [1, 2, 3]
>>> l.index(2)
1

Is

Answer 1

An alternative to selecting the first element from np.where() is to use a generator expression together with enumerate, such as:

>>> import numpy as np
>>> x = np.arange(100)   # x = array([0, 1, 2, 3, ... 99])
>>> next(i for i, x_i in enumerate(x) if x_i == 2)
2

For a two dimensional array one would do:

>>> x = np.arange(100).reshape(10,10)   # x = array([[0, 1, 2,... 9], [10,..19],])
>>> next((i,j) for i, x_i in enumerate(x) 
...            for j, x_ij in enumerate(x_i) if x_ij == 2)
(0, 2)

The advantage of this approach is that it stops checking the elements of the array after the first match is found, whereas np.where checks all elements for a match. A generator expression would be faster if there's match early in the array.