how to find the sum of multiple non zero elements in an array

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hi, i have an array that has like zero and non zero elements like eg: 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 3 3 3 0 0 0
so i want output i=3 and j=9 that is the sum of first set on nonzero elements seporate and the second seporate
  1 Comment
Jan
Jan on 4 Jun 2013
Is "i" and "j" really required? Note that this might get extremely complicated, when you have 5000 such blocks and have to avoid collisions with other existing variables.

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Accepted Answer

Jan
Jan on 4 Jun 2013
Edited: Jan on 4 Jun 2013
a = [0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 3 3 3 0 0 0];
c = cumsum(a);
index = strfind([a,0] ~= 0, [true, false]);
result = [c(index(1)), diff(c(index))];
Not tested yet!
  2 Comments
Mitson Monteiro
Mitson Monteiro on 5 Jun 2013
thanks buddy, for ur answers.... what if i want the index values of the non zero numbers so that i can minus the first index from the last index of first set and the second set and if there are more than one colum data
Jan
Jan on 5 Jun 2013
@Mitson: Do you mean something like this:
index = strfind([0, a] ~= 0, [false, true]) + 1;

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More Answers (3)

Roger Stafford
Roger Stafford on 4 Jun 2013
There is an ambiguity in the posing of this problem. Are the sets of nonzero numbers distinguished from one another by their values or by their contiguity? For example, if your vector were [1 3 0 3 1] do you want [2 6] (distinguished by values) as a result or [4 4] (distinguished by contiguity)? The following assumes the latter.
Let x be the row vector of your numbers.
t = [0,x,0];
c = cumsum(t);
f = find(diff(t~=0)~=0);
r = c(f(2:2:end))-c(f(1:2:end));
My apologies to you, Jan, if this seems too similar to your solution. I couldn't resist giving it.
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Matt J
Matt J on 4 Jun 2013
[u,i,j]=unique([0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 3 3 3 0 0 0])
result = histc(j,1:max(j)).*u

Mitson Monteiro
Mitson Monteiro on 5 Jun 2013
thanks buddy, for ur answers.... what if i want the index values of the non zero numbers so that i can minus the first index from the last index of first set and the second set and if there are more than one colum data

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