Pre Allocating for Speed

Hi,

My Matlab code comes up with an error regaring pre-allocating for speed. Would anybody be able to help me preallocate the following:

An example would be nice.

Thanks

%% Newmarks Method
a1=(1/(beta*dt^2))+((gamma/(beta*dt))*2*zeta*w_n);
a2=(1/(beta*dt))+(((gamma/beta)-1)*2*zeta*w_n);
a3=((1/(2*beta))-1)+((dt*2*zeta*w_n)*((gamma/(2*beta))-1));

wn_2=(w_n)^2+a1;

u_t(1)=0;
dudt(1)=0;
d2udt2(1)=0;

for n=1:length(Acc_g)-1
    p_hat(n+1)=(Acc_g(n+1))+(a1*u_t(n))+(a2*dudt(n))+(a3*d2udt2(n));
    u_t(n+1)=p_hat(n+1)/wn_2;
    dudt(n+1)=((gamma/(beta*dt))*(u_t(n+1)-u_t(n)))+((1-(gamma/beta))*dudt(n))+(dt*(1-(gamma/(2*beta)))*d2udt2(n));
    d2udt2(n+1)=((1/(beta*dt^2)))*(u_t(n+1)-u_t(n))-((1/(beta*dt))*dudt(n))-(((1/(2*beta))-1)*d2udt2(n));
end

[Adam]

p_hat = zeros( 1, length(Acc_g) );

for...
        ...
end

etc.

although you should not use length ideally - either use numel for vectors or size, with the dimensions you want for larger dimension arrays.

Also, you will end up with a 0 at the beginning of each of your arrays (or you can pre-allocate NaNs if you prefer) since you only start from n+1 for some reason.

Also note it is presumably a warning, not an error that you are getting, and that from the M-Lint code analysis, not on running the code. Still, these warnings should be heeded so you are correct to do so!

[John D'Errico]

+1 for a pretty accurate answer by Adam.

Answer 1

[Andreas Bernatzky]

Hey Nathan,

if a vector is not preallocated it means that it grows in every Iteration.

This means you have to expand your vector, shift all the entries and shrink it back. Long Story short unnecessary memory usage. Here a small example:

%% Vector without preallocating
loops=20;
Vector1=[];
for(a=1:1:loops)
   Vector1(end+1)=a; 
end

%% Vector with preallocating
loops=20;
Vector2=ones(1,loops);
for(a=1:1:loops)
   Vector2(a)=a; 
end

Especially for your example preallocate your vector with ones or zero (depends on the application).

In your example i did it for p_hat.

%% Newmarks Method
a1=(1/(beta*dt^2))+((gamma/(beta*dt))*2*zeta*w_n);
a2=(1/(beta*dt))+(((gamma/beta)-1)*2*zeta*w_n);
a3=((1/(2*beta))-1)+((dt*2*zeta*w_n)*((gamma/(2*beta))-1));
wn_2=(w_n)^2+a1;
u_t(1)=0;
dudt(1)=0;
d2udt2(1)=0;
p_hat=ones(1,length(Acc_g)-1);
for n=1:length(Acc_g)-1
    p_hat(n)=(Acc_g(n+1))+(a1*u_t(n))+(a2*dudt(n))+(a3*d2udt2(n));
    u_t(n+1)=p_hat(n+1)/wn_2;
    dudt(n+1)=((gamma/(beta*dt))*(u_t(n+1)-u_t(n)))+((1-(gamma/beta))*dudt(n))+(dt*(1-(gamma/(2*beta)))*d2udt2(n));
    d2udt2(n+1)=((1/(beta*dt^2)))*(u_t(n+1)-u_t(n))-((1/(beta*dt))*dudt(n))-(((1/(2*beta))-1)*d2udt2(n));
end

Hope I could help.