Index n dimensional array with (n-1) d array

Question

What is the most elegant way to access an n dimensional array with an (n-1) dimensional array along a given dimension as in the dummy example

a = np.random.r         


        

Answer 1

Make use of advanced-indexing -

m,n = a.shape[1:]
I,J = np.ogrid[:m,:n]
a_max_values = a[idx, I, J]
b_max_values = b[idx, I, J]

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For the general case:

def argmax_to_max(arr, argmax, axis):
    """argmax_to_max(arr, arr.argmax(axis), axis) == arr.max(axis)"""
    new_shape = list(arr.shape)
    del new_shape[axis]

    grid = np.ogrid[tuple(map(slice, new_shape))]
    grid.insert(axis, argmax)

    return arr[tuple(grid)]

Quite a bit more awkward than such a natural operation should be, unfortunately.

For indexing a n dim array with a (n-1) dim array, we could simplify it a bit to give us the grid of indices for all axes, like so -

def all_idx(idx, axis):
    grid = np.ogrid[tuple(map(slice, idx.shape))]
    grid.insert(axis, idx)
    return tuple(grid)

Hence, use it to index into input arrays -

axis = 0
a_max_values = a[all_idx(idx, axis=axis)]
b_max_values = b[all_idx(idx, axis=axis)]