This question has been asked a couple of times already:
Using numpy to build an array of all combinations of two arrays
The first link has a working numpy solution, that is claimed to be several times faster than itertools, though no benchmarks are provided. This code was written by a user named pv. Please, follow the link and support his answer if you find it useful:
import numpy as np
def cartesian(arrays, out=None):
"""
Generate a cartesian product of input arrays.
Parameters
----------
arrays : list of array-like
1-D arrays to form the cartesian product of.
out : ndarray
Array to place the cartesian product in.
Returns
-------
out : ndarray
2-D array of shape (M, len(arrays)) containing cartesian products
formed of input arrays.
Examples
--------
>>> cartesian(([1, 2, 3], [4, 5], [6, 7]))
array([[1, 4, 6],
[1, 4, 7],
[1, 5, 6],
[1, 5, 7],
[2, 4, 6],
[2, 4, 7],
[2, 5, 6],
[2, 5, 7],
[3, 4, 6],
[3, 4, 7],
[3, 5, 6],
[3, 5, 7]])
"""
arrays = [np.asarray(x) for x in arrays]
dtype = arrays[0].dtype
n = np.prod([x.size for x in arrays])
if out is None:
out = np.zeros([n, len(arrays)], dtype=dtype)
m = n / arrays[0].size
out[:,0] = np.repeat(arrays[0], m)
if arrays[1:]:
cartesian(arrays[1:], out=out[0:m,1:])
for j in xrange(1, arrays[0].size):
out[j*m:(j+1)*m,1:] = out[0:m,1:]
return out
Nevertheless, in the same post Alex Martelli – he is a great Python guru at SO – wrote, that itertools was the fastest way to get this task done. So here is a quick benchmark, that proves Alex’s words.
import numpy as np
import time
import itertools
def cartesian(arrays, out=None):
...
def test_numpy(arrays):
for res in cartesian(arrays):
pass
def test_itertools(arrays):
for res in itertools.product(*arrays):
pass
def main():
arrays = [np.fromiter(range(100), dtype=int), np.fromiter(range(100, 200), dtype=int)]
start = time.clock()
for _ in range(100):
test_numpy(arrays)
print(time.clock() - start)
start = time.clock()
for _ in range(100):
test_itertools(arrays)
print(time.clock() - start)
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
Output:
0.421036
0.06742
So, you should definitely use itertools.