# Indexing tensors

    library(torch)

In this article we describe the indexing operator for torch tensors and how it compares to the R indexing operator for arrays.

Torch’s indexing semantics are closer to numpy’s semantics than R’s. You will find a lot of similarities between this article and the `numpy` indexing article available here.

## Single element indexing

Single element indexing for a 1-D tensors works mostly as expected. Like R, it is 1-based. Unlike R though, it accepts negative indices for indexing from the end of the array. (In R, negative indices are used to remove elements.)

    x <- torch_tensor(1:10)
    x[1]
    #> torch_tensor
    #> 1
    #> [ CPULongType{} ]
    x[-1]
    #> torch_tensor
    #> 10
    #> [ CPULongType{} ]

You can also subset matrices and higher dimensions arrays using the same syntax:

    x <- x$reshape(shape = c(2,5))
    x
    #> torch_tensor
    #>   1   2   3   4   5
    #>   6   7   8   9  10
    #> [ CPULongType{2,5} ]
    x[1,3]
    #> torch_tensor
    #> 3
    #> [ CPULongType{} ]
    x[1,-1]
    #> torch_tensor
    #> 5
    #> [ CPULongType{} ]

Note that if one indexes a multidimensional tensor with fewer indices than dimensions, one gets an error, unlike in R that would flatten the array. For example:

    x[1]
    #> torch_tensor
    #>  1
    #>  2
    #>  3
    #>  4
    #>  5
    #> [ CPULongType{5} ]

## Slicing and striding

It is possible to slice and stride arrays to extract sub-arrays of the same number of dimensions, but of different sizes than the original. This is best illustrated by a few examples:

    x <- torch_tensor(1:10)
    x
    #> torch_tensor
    #>   1
    #>   2
    #>   3
    #>   4
    #>   5
    #>   6
    #>   7
    #>   8
    #>   9
    #>  10
    #> [ CPULongType{10} ]
    x[2:5]
    #> torch_tensor
    #>  2
    #>  3
    #>  4
    #>  5
    #> [ CPULongType{4} ]
    x[1:(-7)]
    #> torch_tensor
    #>  1
    #>  2
    #>  3
    #>  4
    #> [ CPULongType{4} ]

You can also use the `1:10:2` syntax which means: In the range from 1 to 10, take every second item. For example:

    x[1:5:2]
    #> torch_tensor
    #>  1
    #>  3
    #>  5
    #> [ CPULongType{3} ]

Another special syntax is the `N`, meaning the size of the specified dimension.

    x[5:N]
    #> torch_tensor
    #>   5
    #>   6
    #>   7
    #>   8
    #>   9
    #>  10
    #> [ CPULongType{6} ]

## Getting the complete dimension

Like in R, you can take all elements in a dimension by leaving an index empty.

Consider a matrix:

    x <- torch_randn(2, 3)
    x
    #> torch_tensor
    #>  1.6263  2.1773 -1.2879
    #> -1.3563 -1.2245 -1.6768
    #> [ CPUFloatType{2,3} ]

The following syntax will give you the first row:

    x[1,]
    #> torch_tensor
    #>  1.6263
    #>  2.1773
    #> -1.2879
    #> [ CPUFloatType{3} ]

And this would give you the first 2 columns:

    x[,1:2]
    #> torch_tensor
    #>  1.6263  2.1773
    #> -1.3563 -1.2245
    #> [ CPUFloatType{2,2} ]

## Dropping dimensions

By default, when indexing by a single integer, this dimension will be dropped to avoid the singleton dimension:

    x <- torch_randn(2, 3)
    x[1,]$shape
    #> [1] 3

You can optionally use the `drop = FALSE` argument to avoid dropping the dimension.

    x[1,,drop = FALSE]$shape
    #> [1] 1 3

## Adding a new dimension

It’s possible to add a new dimension to a tensor using index-like syntax:

    x <- torch_tensor(c(10))
    x$shape
    #> [1] 1
    x[, newaxis]$shape
    #> [1] 1 1
    x[, newaxis, newaxis]$shape
    #> [1] 1 1 1

You can also use `NULL` instead of `newaxis`:

    x[,NULL]$shape
    #> [1] 1 1

## Dealing with variable number of indices

Sometimes we don’t know how many dimensions a tensor has, but we do know what to do with the last available dimension, or the first one. To subsume all others, we can use `..`:

    z <- torch_tensor(1:125)$reshape(c(5,5,5))
    z[1,..]
    #> torch_tensor
    #>   1   2   3   4   5
    #>   6   7   8   9  10
    #>  11  12  13  14  15
    #>  16  17  18  19  20
    #>  21  22  23  24  25
    #> [ CPULongType{5,5} ]
    z[..,1]
    #> torch_tensor
    #>    1    6   11   16   21
    #>   26   31   36   41   46
    #>   51   56   61   66   71
    #>   76   81   86   91   96
    #>  101  106  111  116  121
    #> [ CPULongType{5,5} ]