I have to write an ABM (agent-based model) project in Python and I need to initialize 50 agents which will each contain a different set of numbers. I cannot use a matrix of 50 rows because each agent (each row) can have a different quantity of elements so the vector of each agent has not the same length: when certain conditions for agent_i occur in the algorithm then a number calculated by the algorithm is added to its vector. The simplest way would be to write manually every one like this
agent_1 = np.array([]) agent_2 = np.array([]) agent_3 = np.array([]) ...
but of course I can’t. I don’t know if exist a way to automatically initialize with a loop, something like
for i in range(50): agent_i = np.array([])
If it exist, It would be useful because then, when certain conditions occur in the algorithm, I could add a calculated numbers to agent_i:
agent_i = np.append(agent_i, result_of_algorithm)
Maybe another way is to use an array of arrays
[[agent_1_collection],[agent_2_collection], ... , [agent_50_collection]]
Once again, I don’t know how to initialize an array of arrays and I don’t know how to add a number to a specific array: in fact I think it can’t be done like this (assume, for simplicity, that I have this little array of only 3 agents and that I know how it is done):
vect = np.array([[1],[2,3],[4,5,6]]) result_of_algorithm_for_agent_2 = ...some calculations that we assume give as result... = 90 vect[1] = np.append(vect[1], result_of_algorithm_for_agent_2)
output:
array([[1], array([ 2, 3, 90]), [4, 5, 6]], dtype=object)
why it changes in that way?
Do you have any advice on how to manipulate arrays of arrays? For example, how to add elements to a specific point of a sub-array (agent)?
Thanks.
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Answer
List of Arrays
You can create a list of arrays:
agents = [np.array([]) for _ in range(50)]
And then to append values to some agent, say agents[0]
, use:
items_to_append = [1, 2, 3] # Or whatever you want. agents[0] = np.append(agents[0], items_to_append)
List of Lists
Alternatively, if you don’t need to use np.array
s, you can use lists for the agents values. In that case you would initialize with:
a = [[] for _ in range(50)]
And you can append to agents[0]
with either
single_value = 1 # Or whatever you want. agents[0].append(single_value)
Or with
items_to_append = [1, 2, 3] # Or whatever you want agents[0] += items_to_append