Hello all, I'm trying to find all combinations of 4 numbers that satisfy 4 criteria, inside of a matrix (62 x 25). I've found a way to do this using for loops, but it is extremely slow because it involves checking every possible combination of numbers (567300) to see if the criteria are satisfied. Do you think there is a faster method of doing this? Or some functions that might help me out?
The matrix is of species abundances, with each row representing a species (A,B,C...) and each column representing a site (1,2,3...). The numbers in the matrix tell the abundance of the species at that site: > 1 2 3... > A 0 5 6... > B 7 8 2... > C 4 1 3... > ... > I'm trying to find combinations of species/sites such that A1>B1,A1>A2,B2>B1,B2>A2 I have used expand.grid to get all combinations of species pairs and site pairs, and then checked to see if the inequalities are satisfied. However, as I said, it takes forever. I tried to write a function that would take vectors and trick R into searching for my pattern: > count <- function(i,j,k,l){ > length(matrix[matrix[i,k] > matrix[i,l] && > matrix[i,k] > matrix[j,k] && > matrix[j,l] > matrix[j,k] && > matrix[j,l] > matrix[i,l]]) > } > That didn't work. So I wonder if anyone has any ideas of another way to proceed or functions I could look up that would head me in the right direction. Something fully fleshed out isn't necessary. Thanks! Q -- View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Find-pattern-in-matrix-tp3685278p3685278.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.