Dimnames and names for MLX arrays

Since version 0.4.0, Rmlx supports character names and dimnames. These work much like base R: names(), rownames(), colnames(), dimnames() and associated setters all work. Dimnames may be NULL as a whole, and any individual dimension's names may be NULL.

Usage

# S3 method for class 'mlx'
dimnames(x)

# S3 method for class 'mlx'
dimnames(x) <- value

# S3 method for class 'mlx'
names(x)

# S3 method for class 'mlx'
names(x) <- value

Arguments

x

An object.

value

Replacement names or dimnames.

Value

The requested names, or x with updated metadata for replacement forms.

rownames() and colnames() use these dimnames() methods through base R's internal generic dispatch.

Details

Dimnames can be convenient, but they also slow down operations by adding work in base R (mlx can't store character strings). In particular, slowdowns for subsetting can be considerable, maybe 5x or 6x slower. To maximize performance, you can avoid names, or remove them with unname().