Subset assignment of multidimensional array in R - r

Question

I am trying to assign rows of a 3D array, but I don't know how excatly.
I have a 2D index array where each row corresponds to the first and second index of the 3D array, and a 2D value array which i want to insert into the 3D array. The simplest way I found to do this was
indexes <- cbind(1:30, rep(c(1, 2), 15))
rows <- cbind(1:20, 31:50, 71:90)
for (i in 1:nrow(indexes)) for (j in 1:3)
data[indexes[i,1], indexes[i,2], j] <- rows[i, j]
But this is hard to read, because it uses nested indexing, so I was hoping there was a simpler way, like
data[indexes,] <- rows
(this does not work)
What I've tried:
this question shows how to index the array (without assignment)
apply(data, 3, `[`, indexes)
but this doesn't allow assignment
apply(data, 3, `[`, indexes) <- rows #: could not find function "apply<-"
nor does using [<- work:
apply(data, 3, `[<-`, indexes, rows)
because it treats rows as a vector.
Neither of the following works either
data[indexes[1], indexes[2],] <- rows #: subscript out of bounds
data[indexes,] <- rows #: incorrect number of subscripts on matrix
So is there a simpler way of assigning to a multidimensional array?

Answer 1

Your indexes variable implies that data has first dim of 30, but rows[30,j] doesn't exist. So your problem isn't well posed, and I'll change it.
The basic idea is that you can index a 3 way array by an n x 3 matrix. Each row of the matrix corresponds to a location in the 3 way array, so if you want to set entry data[1,2,3] to 4, and entry data[5,6,7] to 8, you'd use
index <- rbind(c(1,2,3), c(5,6,7))
data[index] <- c(4,8)
You will need to expand your indexes variable to replicate each row 3 times, then read the rows matrix as a vector, and then this works:
data <- array(NA, dim=c(30, 2, 3))
indexes <- cbind(1:30, rep(c(1, 2), 15))
rows <- cbind(1:30, 31:60, 71:100)
indexes1 <- indexes[rep(1:nrow(indexes), each = 3),]
indexes2 <- cbind(indexes1, 1:3)
data[indexes2] <- t(rows) # Transpose because R reads down columns first
I don't think this is any simpler than what you had with the for loops, but maybe you'll find it preferable.

Answer 2

After reading #user2554330's answer, I found a slightly simpler solution
# initialize as in user2554330's answer
data <- ...
indexes <- ...
rows <- ...
indexes3 <- as.matrix(merge(indexes, 1:3))
data[indexes3] <- rows
comparison of indexes2 and indexes3 (using fewer elements):
# print(indexes2)
[,1] [,2] [,3]
[1,] 1 1 1
[2,] 1 1 2
[3,] 1 1 3
[4,] 2 2 1
[5,] 2 2 2
[6,] 2 2 3
[7,] 3 1 1
[8,] 3 1 2
[9,] 3 1 3
[10,] 4 2 1
[11,] 4 2 2
[12,] 4 2 3
# print(indexes3)
[,1] [,2] [,3]
[1,] 1 1 1
[2,] 2 2 1
[3,] 3 1 1
[4,] 4 2 1
[5,] 1 1 2
[6,] 2 2 2
[7,] 3 1 2
[8,] 4 2 2
[9,] 1 1 3
[10,] 2 2 3
[11,] 3 1 3
[12,] 4 2 3