Rolling or sliding window iterator?

Question

I need a rolling window (aka sliding window) iterable over a sequence/iterator/generator. Default Python iteration can be considered a special case, where the window length

Answer 1

Trying my part, simple, one liner, pythonic way using islice. But, may not be optimally efficient.

from itertools import islice
array = range(0, 10)
window_size = 4
map(lambda i: list(islice(array, i, i + window_size)), range(0, len(array) - window_size + 1))
# output = [[0, 1, 2, 3], [1, 2, 3, 4], [2, 3, 4, 5], [3, 4, 5, 6], [4, 5, 6, 7], [5, 6, 7, 8], [6, 7, 8, 9]]

Explanation: Create window by using islice of window_size and iterate this operation using map over all array.

Answer 2

Modified DiPaolo's answer to allow arbitrary fill and variable step size

import itertools
def window(seq, n=2,step=1,fill=None,keep=0):
    "Returns a sliding window (of width n) over data from the iterable"
    "   s -> (s0,s1,...s[n-1]), (s1,s2,...,sn), ...                   "
    it = iter(seq)
    result = tuple(itertools.islice(it, n))    
    if len(result) == n:
        yield result
    while True:        
#         for elem in it:        
        elem = tuple( next(it, fill) for _ in range(step))
        result = result[step:] + elem        
        if elem[-1] is fill:
            if keep:
                yield result
            break
        yield result

Answer 3

I like tee():

from itertools import tee, izip

def window(iterable, size):
    iters = tee(iterable, size)
    for i in xrange(1, size):
        for each in iters[i:]:
            next(each, None)
    return izip(*iters)

for each in window(xrange(6), 3):
    print list(each)

gives:

[0, 1, 2]
[1, 2, 3]
[2, 3, 4]
[3, 4, 5]

Answer 4

#Importing the numpy library
import numpy as np
arr = np.arange(6) #Sequence
window_size = 3
np.lib.stride_tricks.as_strided(arr, shape= (len(arr) - window_size +1, window_size), 
strides = arr.strides*2)

"""Example output:

  [0, 1, 2]
  [1, 2, 3]
  [2, 3, 4]
  [3, 4, 5]

"""

Answer 5

I use the following code as a simple sliding window that uses generators to drastically increase readability. Its speed has so far been sufficient for use in bioinformatics sequence analysis in my experience.

I include it here because I didn't see this method used yet. Again, I make no claims about its compared performance.

def slidingWindow(sequence,winSize,step=1):
"""Returns a generator that will iterate through
the defined chunks of input sequence. Input sequence
must be sliceable."""

    # Verify the inputs
    if not ((type(winSize) == type(0)) and (type(step) == type(0))):
        raise Exception("**ERROR** type(winSize) and type(step) must be int.")
    if step > winSize:
        raise Exception("**ERROR** step must not be larger than winSize.")
    if winSize > len(sequence):
        raise Exception("**ERROR** winSize must not be larger than sequence length.")

    # Pre-compute number of chunks to emit
    numOfChunks = ((len(sequence)-winSize)/step)+1

    # Do the work
    for i in range(0,numOfChunks*step,step):
        yield sequence[i:i+winSize]

Answer 6

Let's make it lazy!

from itertools import islice, tee

def window(iterable, size): 
    iterators = tee(iterable, size) 
    iterators = [islice(iterator, i, None) for i, iterator in enumerate(iterators)]  
    yield from zip(*iterators)

list(window(range(5), 3))
# [(0, 1, 2), (1, 2, 3), (2, 3, 4)]