You didn't show your complete code but the following may help you speed things up. Compare a function, f0, structured like your code and one, f1, that calls sum once instead of counting length(x)-3 times.
f0 <- function(x, test.pattern) { count <- 0 for(indx in seq_len(length(x)-3)) { if ((x[indx] == test.pattern[1]) && (x[indx+1] == test.pattern[2]) && (x[indx+2] == test.pattern[3])) { count <- count + 1 } } count } f1 <- function(x, test.pattern) { indx <- seq_len(length(x)-3) sum((x[indx] == test.pattern[1]) & (x[indx+1] == test.pattern[2]) & (x[indx+2] == test.pattern[3])) } > bin.05 <- round((log10(1:10000000)%%1e-3 - log10(1:10000000)%%1e-4) * 1e4) # > quasi-random sample of 10^7 from {0,...,9} > system.time(print(f0(bin.05, c(2,3,3)))) [1] 3194 user system elapsed 14.35 0.00 14.35 > system.time(print(f1(bin.05, c(2,3,3)))) [1] 3194 user system elapsed 0.70 0.21 0.90 You are probably also slowing things down by doing yourList$yourCounts[1] <- yourList$yourCounts[1] + 1 many times instead of count <- yourList$yourCounts[1] once and count <- count + 1 many times. The former evaluates $, [, $<-, and [<- many times and the $<- and [<- in particular may use a fair bit of time. Bill Dunlap Spotfire, TIBCO Software wdunlap tibco.com > -----Original Message----- > From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On > Behalf > Of Walter Anderson > Sent: Friday, March 16, 2012 10:00 AM > To: R Help > Subject: [R] Faster way to implement this search? > > I am working on a simulation where I need to count the number of matches > for an arbitrary pattern in a large sequence of binomial factors. My > current code is > > for(indx in 1:(length(bin.05)-3)) > if ((bin.05[indx] == test.pattern[1]) && (bin.05[indx+1] == > test.pattern[2]) && (bin.05[indx+2] == test.pattern[3])) > return.values$count.match.pattern[1] = > return.values$count.match.pattern[1] + 1 > > Since I am running the above code for each simulation multiple times on > sequences of 10,000,000 factors the code is taking longer than I would > like. Is there a better (more "R" way of achieving the same answer? > > Walter Anderson > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.