Searching in Array for a given element in Julia

Last Updated : 10 May, 2020

Given an array (1D, 2D or 3D), and an element to look for in the array. If the element is present in the array, then print the position of the element in the array, else print “Element not found”.
In the recent updates to Julia, the developers have unified the search() and find() functions into a simpler findall() function. However, the rest of its counterparts, such as, findnext(), findprev() etc. are still accessible. The find() function is replaced by filter() method, and a new indexin() function is added which returns the index of particular elements from an array.

Examples:

Input : array1 = [ 5, 9, 1, 8, 2, 7 ] 
        sch = 8 
Output : Element found at position 4

Input : array2 = [ 7 9 2
                   9 4 1
                   8 4 6 ]
        sch = 4
Output : Element found at CartesianIndex(2, 2).
         Element found at CartesianIndex(3, 2).

Input : array3 = [ 22, 7, 91, 69, 2, 74 ] 
        sch = 6 
Output : Element not found.

[Note: Unlike other languages, In Julia indexing of an Array starts with 1.]

Using `findall()` method

The findall() method is used to find all the occurrences of the required element from an array, and return an Array (or CartesianArray, depending on the dimensions of input array) of the index, where the elements are present in the input array. If the element is not present in the input array, it returns an empty array.
Syntax:

findall(::Function, ::Number)

# Julia program to illustrate the  
# use of findall() method to search  
# for an element in an array. 
   
# Searching for an element in a 1D ARRAY 
array1 = [ 12, 35, 7, 34, 72, 12, 5 ] 
sch = 12
   
indexArray = findall( x -> x == sch, array1 ) 
for i in indexArray 
    println("Element found at position ", i) 
end 
if (length( findall( x -> x == sch, array1 )) == 0) 
    println("Element not found.") 
end 
   
# Searching for an element in a 2D ARRAY 
# of shape (3 x 3). 
array2 = [ 23 56 12; 1 7 12; 23 67 34 ] 
sch = 7
   
indexArray = findall( x -> x == sch, array2 ) 
for i in indexArray 
    println("Element found at ", i) 
end 
if (length( findall( x -> x == sch, array2 )) == 0) 
    println("Element not found.") 
end 
    
# Searching for an element in a 3D ARRAY 
# of shape (3 x 3 x 3). 
array3 = cat([1 2 3; 5 4 2; 3 5 6], 
             [1 5 3; 3 1 7; 8 0 1], 
             [1 3 6; 3 7 7; 8 8 2], dims=3) 
sch = 14
   
indexArray = findall( x -> x == sch, array3 ) 
for i in indexArray 
    println("Element found at ", i) 
end 
if (length( findall( x -> x == sch, array3 )) == 0) 
    println("Element not found.") 
end 

Output:

Using `indexin()` method

The indexin() function is used to search for the position of the first occurrence of the element in the array (searches row-wise) and return its position in the array. However, the search stops as soon as the searched element is found in the array. Thus, this function always returns an array of length 1. If the searched element is not found in the array, it returns nothing in an array.
Syntax:

indexin(::Any, ::AbstractArray)

# Julia program to illustrate the  
# use of indexin() method to search  
# for an element in an array. 
   
# Searching for an element in a 1D ARRAY 
array1 = [ 12, 35, 7, 34, 72, 12, 7 ] 
sch = 7
   
positionArray = indexin( sch, array1 ) 
if (positionArray .== nothing ) 
    println("Element not found.") 
else
    println("Element found at position ",  
             positionArray[1]) 
end 
   
# Searching for an element in a 2D ARRAY 
# of shape (3 x 3). 
array2 = [ 23 56 12; 1 7 12; 23 67 34 ] 
sch = 12
   
positionArray = indexin( sch, array2 ) 
if (positionArray .== nothing ) 
    println("Element not found.") 
else
    println("Element found at ", positionArray[1]) 
end 
   
# Searching for an element in a 3D ARRAY 
# of shape (3 x 3 x 3). 
array3 = cat([1 2 3; 5 4 2; 3 5 6], 
             [1 5 3; 3 1 7; 8 0 1], 
             [1 3 6; 3 7 7; 8 8 2], dims=3) 
sch = 14
   
positionArray = indexin( sch, array3 ) 
if (positionArray .== nothing ) 
    println("Element not found.") 
else
    println("Element found at ", positionArray[1]) 
end 

Output:

Using `filter()` method

The filter() function is generally used to filter elements from the array that are satisfying some particular condition. But, we can also use this function to search for elements in an array. However, this function, instead of returning index, returns the elements itself from the array. So, we could just check the size of the array returned by this function, and print accordingly.
Syntax:

filter(::Any, ::Array{T, N}) where {T, N} at array.

# Julia program to illustrate the  
# use of filter() method to search  
# for an element in an array. 
   
# Searching for an element in a 1D ARRAY 
array1 = [ 12, 35, 7, 34, 72, 12, 7 ] 
sch = 72
   
elementArray = filter( x -> x == sch, array1 ) 
if (length(elementArray) == 0) 
    println("Element not found.") 
else
    println("Element found in the array.") 
end 
   
# Searching for an element in a 2D ARRAY 
# of shape (3 x 3). 
array2 = [ 23 56 12; 1 7 12; 23 67 34 ] 
sch = 33
   
elementArray = filter( x -> x == sch, array2 ) 
if (length(elementArray) == 0) 
    println("Element not found.") 
else
    println("Element found in the array.") 
end 
   
# Searching for an element in a 3D ARRAY 
# of shape (3 x 3 x 3). 
array3 = cat([1 2 3; 5 4 2; 3 5 6], 
             [1 5 3; 3 1 7; 8 0 1],  
             [1 3 6; 3 7 7; 8 8 2], dims=3) 
sch = 3
   
elementArray = filter( x -> x == sch, array3 ) 
if (length(elementArray) == 0) 
    println("Element not found.") 
else
    println("Element found in the array.") 
end 

Output:

Apart from all these inbuilt functions for searching an element in array, we could also use the two most common searching algorithms, i.e. Linear Search and Binary search.

Searching Elements in an Array | Array Operations

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Searching in Array for a given element in Julia

Using findall() method

Using indexin() method

Using filter() method

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