Faster way to unlist a list of large matrices? - r

Question

I have a list of large matrices. All these matrices have the same number of rows and I want to "unlist" them and bind all their columns together. Below is a piece of code that I wrote, but I am not sure if this is the best I can achieve in terms of computational efficiency.
# simulate
n <- 10
nr <- 24
nc <- 8000
test <- list()
set.seed(1234)
for (i in 1:n){
test[[i]] <- matrix(rnorm(nr*nc),nr,nc)
}
> system.time( res <- matrix( as.numeric( unlist(test) ) ,nr,nc*n) )
user system elapsed
0.114 0.006 0.120

Answer 1

To work on a list and call a function on all objects, do.call is my usual first idea, along with cbind here to bind by column all objects.
For n=100 (with others answers for sake of completeness):
n <- 10
nr <- 24
nc <- 8000
test <- list()
set.seed(1234)
for (i in 1:n){
test[[i]] <- matrix(rnorm(nr*nc),nr,nc)
}
require(data.table)
ori <- function() { matrix( as.numeric( unlist(test) ) ,nr,nc*n) }
Tensibai <- function() { do.call(cbind,test) }
BrodieG <- function() { `attr<-`(do.call(c, test), "dim", c(nr, nc * n)) }
nicola <- function() { setattr(unlist(test),"dim",c(nr,nc*n)) }
library(microbenchmark)
microbenchmark(r1 <- ori(),
r2 <- Tensibai(),
r3 <- BrodieG(),
r4 <- nicola(), times=10)
Results:
Unit: milliseconds
expr min lq mean median uq max neval cld
r1 <- ori() 23.834673 24.287391 39.49451 27.066844 29.737964 93.74249 10 a
r2 <- Tensibai() 17.416232 17.706165 18.18665 17.873083 18.192238 21.29512 10 a
r3 <- BrodieG() 6.009344 6.145045 21.63073 8.690869 10.323845 77.95325 10 a
r4 <- nicola() 5.912984 6.106273 13.52697 6.273904 6.678156 75.40914 10 a
As for the why (in comments), #nicola did give the answer about it, there's less copy than original method.
All methods gives the same result:
> identical(r1,r2,r3,r4)
[1] TRUE

Answer 2

It seems that do.call beats the other method due to a copy made during the matrix call. What is interesting is that you can avoid that copy using the data.table::setattr function which allows to set attributes by reference, avoiding any copy. I omitted also the as.numeric part, since it is not necessary (unlist(test) is already numeric). So:
require(microbenchmark)
require(data.table)
f1<-function() setattr(unlist(test),"dim",c(nr,nc*n))
f2<-function() do.call(cbind,test)
microbenchmark(res <-f1(),res2 <- f2(),times=10)
#Unit: milliseconds
# expr min lq mean median uq max neval
# res <- f1() 4.088455 4.183504 7.540913 4.44109 4.988605 35.05378 10
#res2 <- f2() 18.325302 18.379328 18.776834 18.66857 19.100681 19.47415 10
identical(res,res2)
#[1] TRUE

Answer 3

I think I have a better one. We can avoid some of the overhead from cbind since we know these all have the same number of rows and columns. Instead, we use c knowing that the underlying vector nature of the matrices will allow us to re-wrap them into the correct dimensions:
microbenchmark(
x <- `attr<-`(do.call(c, test), "dim", c(nr, nc * n)),
y <- do.call(cbind, test)
)
# Unit: milliseconds
# expr min lq
# x <- `attr<-`(do.call(c, test), "dim", c(nr, nc * n)) 4.435943 4.699006
# y <- do.call(cbind, test) 19.339477 19.567063
# mean median uq max neval cld
# 12.76214 5.209938 9.095001 379.77856 100 a
# 21.64878 20.000279 24.210848 26.02499 100 b
identical(x, y)
# [1] TRUE
If you have varying number of columns you can probably still do this with some care in computing the total number of columns.