Find nearest value in numpy array

Question

Is there a numpy-thonic way, e.g. function, to find the nearest value in an array?

Example:

np.find_nearest( array, value )

Answer 1

With slight modification, the answer above works with arrays of arbitrary dimension (1d, 2d, 3d, ...):

def find_nearest(a, a0):
    "Element in nd array `a` closest to the scalar value `a0`"
    idx = np.abs(a - a0).argmin()
    return a.flat[idx]

Or, written as a single line:

a.flat[np.abs(a - a0).argmin()]

Answer 2

I think the most pythonic way would be:

 num = 65 # Input number
 array = n.random.random((10))*100 # Given array 
 nearest_idx = n.where(abs(array-num)==abs(array-num).min())[0] # If you want the index of the element of array (array) nearest to the the given number (num)
 nearest_val = array[abs(array-num)==abs(array-num).min()] # If you directly want the element of array (array) nearest to the given number (num)

This is the basic code. You can use it as a function if you want

Answer 3

import numpy as np
def find_nearest(array, value):
    array = np.array(array)
    z=np.abs(array-value)
    y= np.where(z == z.min())
    m=np.array(y)
    x=m[0,0]
    y=m[1,0]
    near_value=array[x,y]

    return near_value

array =np.array([[60,200,30],[3,30,50],[20,1,-50],[20,-500,11]])
print(array)
value = 0
print(find_nearest(array, value))

Answer 4

Here is a version with scipy for @Ari Onasafari, answer "to find the nearest vector in an array of vectors"

In [1]: from scipy import spatial

In [2]: import numpy as np

In [3]: A = np.random.random((10,2))*100

In [4]: A
Out[4]:
array([[ 68.83402637,  38.07632221],
       [ 76.84704074,  24.9395109 ],
       [ 16.26715795,  98.52763827],
       [ 70.99411985,  67.31740151],
       [ 71.72452181,  24.13516764],
       [ 17.22707611,  20.65425362],
       [ 43.85122458,  21.50624882],
       [ 76.71987125,  44.95031274],
       [ 63.77341073,  78.87417774],
       [  8.45828909,  30.18426696]])

In [5]: pt = [6, 30]  # <-- the point to find

In [6]: A[spatial.KDTree(A).query(pt)[1]] # <-- the nearest point 
Out[6]: array([  8.45828909,  30.18426696])

#how it works!
In [7]: distance,index = spatial.KDTree(A).query(pt)

In [8]: distance # <-- The distances to the nearest neighbors
Out[8]: 2.4651855048258393

In [9]: index # <-- The locations of the neighbors
Out[9]: 9

#then 
In [10]: A[index]
Out[10]: array([  8.45828909,  30.18426696])

Answer 5

Here is a fast vectorized version of @Dimitri's solution if you have many values to search for (values can be multi-dimensional array):

#`values` should be sorted
def get_closest(array, values):
    #make sure array is a numpy array
    array = np.array(array)

    # get insert positions
    idxs = np.searchsorted(array, values, side="left")

    # find indexes where previous index is closer
    prev_idx_is_less = ((idxs == len(array))|(np.fabs(values - array[np.maximum(idxs-1, 0)]) < np.fabs(values - array[np.minimum(idxs, len(array)-1)])))
    idxs[prev_idx_is_less] -= 1

    return array[idxs]

Benchmarks

> 100 times faster than using a for loop with @Demitri's solution`

>>> %timeit ar=get_closest(np.linspace(1, 1000, 100), np.random.randint(0, 1050, (1000, 1000)))
139 ms ± 4.04 ms per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10 loops each)

>>> %timeit ar=[find_nearest(np.linspace(1, 1000, 100), value) for value in np.random.randint(0, 1050, 1000*1000)]
took 21.4 seconds

Answer 6

If you don't want to use numpy this will do it:

def find_nearest(array, value):
    n = [abs(i-value) for i in array]
    idx = n.index(min(n))
    return array[idx]