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NumPy np.outer()

In NumPy, the outer() function allows us to calculate the outer product of two vectors.

You can learn more about the outer product in the resource below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_product

The outer product can be expressed as shown:

Suppose you have two vectors a and b with the values as shown:

a = [a0, a1, a2…aM]

b = [b0, b1, b2…bN]

The outer product is calculated as shown:

[[a0*b0  a0*b1 ... a0*bN ]
 [a1*b0    .
 [ ...          .
 [aM*b0            aM*bN ]]

Let us learn how to use the outer() function in NumPy.

Function Syntax

The function syntax can be expressed as shown in the code snippet below:

numpy.outer(a, b, out=None)

Parameters

The function has a simple syntax and accepts three main parameters:

  1. a – refers to the first input vector. Think of it as M in the previous explanation.
  2. b – refers to the second input vector. In this case, it acts as N.
  3. out – an alternative array to store the resulting output. It takes shape (M, N).

Return Value

The function returns the outer product of the two vectors in the for:

out[i, j] = a[i] * b[j]

Example #1

The code below shows how to calculate the outer product of two one-dimensional arrays.

# import numpy
import numpy as np
a = np.array([10,20,30])
b = np.array([1,2,3])
print(np.outer(a, b))

The resulting array is as shown:

[[10 20 30]
 [20 40 60]
 [30 60 90]]

Example #2

In the case of a 2×3 matrix, the function should return:

a = np.array([[10,20,30], [40,50,60]])
b = np.array([[1,2,3], [4,5,6]])
print(np.outer(a,b))

The function should return:

[[ 10  20  30  40  50  60]
 [ 20  40  60  80 100 120]
 [ 30  60  90 120 150 180]
 [ 40  80 120 160 200 240]
 [ 50 100 150 200 250 300]
 [ 60 120 180 240 300 360]]

Example #3

The outer function also allows you to perform the outer product with a vector of letters.

An example is as shown:

a = np.array(['a', 'b', 'c', 'd'], dtype=object)
b = np.array([0,1,2,3])
print(np.outer(a,b))

The code above should return:

[['' 'a' 'aa' 'aaa']
 ['' 'b' 'bb' 'bbb']
 ['' 'c' 'cc' 'ccc']
 ['' 'd' 'dd' 'ddd']]

Conclusion

This article guides you in calculating the outer products of two vectors using NumPy’s outer() function.

Thanks for reading & Happy coding!!

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Source: linuxhint.com

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