Re: Find last NZ in list
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg46113] Re: Find last NZ in list
- From: Mark Fisher <mefisher_news at bellsouth.net>
- Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 04:01:56 -0500 (EST)
- References: <bvvnir$j5k$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Carlos Felippa wrote:
> This is kind of an "esthetics" question. In a program I am writing
> I need to find the last nonzero entry of a 1D list millions of
> times. For example FindLastNonzero[{1,2,3,4,0,a,b-b,0,0}] -> 6,
> and FindLastNonzero[{0,0,0,0,0,0,0}] -> 0.
> Here are two ugly C-style implementations:
>
> FindLastNonzero[a_]:=Module[{n=Length[a]},
> For [i=n,i>0,i--, If [a[[i]]==0,Continue[],Return[i],Return[i]]];
> Return[0]];
>
> FindLastNonzero[a_]:=Module[{n=Length[a]},
> For [i=n,i>0,i--, If [a[[i]]!=0,Return[i],Continue[i],Return[i]]];
> Return[0]];
>
> Is there a built-in function, or something more elegant,
> available to do this job? Find only works for text streams.
>
> Note that the If case "cannot tell if entry is NZ" is important for
> symbolic lists. That case should be evaluated as NZ.
>
How about this?
FLN[data_ /; Union[data] == {0}] := 0
FLN[data_] := (Length[data] + 1) -
Position[Reverse[data], _?(# =!= 0 &),
{1}, 1, Heads -> False][[1, 1]]
The first definition applies if all the elements are zero. Otherwize,
the second definition reverses the data and stops when the first nonzero
match is found.
--Mark