Replacing the zero entry of a vector with its nonzero entries

4 views (last 30 days)
Hello,
Today I have another problem slightly different from my previous question, but they are of the same nature.
Suppose I have a vector A in which there are some zero and nonzero entries. How can I replace the nonzero entries of the vector in such a way that the replacement is done with the closet (left/right index) nonzero entry?
If 0 appears between 2 numbers then we replace it with leftmost nonzero number. For example, if A=[2;0;-1;-2;0;0;4;1], then the replacement is done as follows: the 0 in A(2) is replaced with the number in A(1) (i.e. 2) not A(3); the 0 in A(5) is replaced with the number in A(4) and the zero in A(6) is replaced with the number in A(7).
If it occurs that only 1 entry is nonzero, then we replaced all the zero entries with that nonzero entry. If we have only 2 nonzero entries in the middle of the vector, say k,k+1, then we replaced the 1,2,..,k-1 entries with nonzero entry k,and we replaced the k+2,k+3,...,n with the nonzero entry k+1.
Thank you.
  2 Comments
Jan
Jan on 20 Feb 2018
The question is strange. You want to replace the nonzero elements by the closest nonzero elements? The same for: "only 1 entry is nonzero, then we replaced all the nonzero entries with that nonzero entry"?
Do you mean that you want to replace the zeros as in the given example? Please edit the question and fix this.
Hassan
Hassan on 20 Feb 2018
@Jan Simon, yes you are right. I have edit the question. Thank you for the observation.

Sign in to comment.

Answers (2)

Jan
Jan on 20 Feb 2018
Edited: Jan on 20 Feb 2018
I guess, that you want to replace zeros by the nearest non-zero value. Then this is a job for interp1:
z = (A == 0);
A(z) = interp1(find(~z), A(~z), find(z), 'nearest');
To consider leading and trailing zeros:
A(z) = interp1(find(~z), A(~z), find(z), 'nearest', 'extrap');
  9 Comments
Basil C.
Basil C. on 21 Feb 2018
I guess your latest solution should solve the problem.
Nice approach by using interp1 @Jan Simon. Learnt something new.

Sign in to comment.


Basil C.
Basil C. on 20 Feb 2018
Edited: Basil C. on 20 Feb 2018
  • For your first part
for(i=1:length(A)-1)
if(A(i)~=0 && A(i+1)==0)
A(i+1)=A(i);
end
end
However I wasn't able to figure out the pattern as to why do you want to set the zero in A(6) to the value in A(8)
  • For the second part. If the matrix is B.
% CASE 1
if(find(B)== length(B)/2+0.5)
B(:)=B(length(B)/2+0.5);
% CASE 2
elseif(find(B)== [length(B)/2,length(B)/2+1] )
B(1:length(B)/2)=B(length(B)/2);
B(length(B)/2 +1:length(B))=B(length(B)/2+1);
end
Hope this solves your doubt.
  2 Comments
Hassan
Hassan on 20 Feb 2018
Edited: Hassan on 20 Feb 2018
@Basil, I mean A(7) not A(8), it was a typo, I have fix it.
Hassan
Hassan on 21 Feb 2018
@Basil, the problem with your answer is that it contains looping. I prepare loop-free codes.

Sign in to comment.

Products

Community Treasure Hunt

Find the treasures in MATLAB Central and discover how the community can help you!

Start Hunting!