Open In App

How to use the NumPy sum function?

Improve
Improve
Improve
Like Article
Like
Save Article
Save
Share
Report issue
Report

NumPy’s sum() function is extremely useful for summing all elements of a given array in Python. In this article, we’ll be going over how to utilize this function and how to quickly use this to advance your code’s functionality.

Let’s go over how to use these functions and the benefits of using this function rather than iteration summation. Let’s first write the underlying algorithm to do simple summation ourselves. This will take the form of a function as follows:

Python3




# Let's define our function
# Parameters: Input Array
def sum(array):
   
    # Set variable for our final answer
    sum = 0
     
    # Parse through our array
    for i in array:
         
        # Continuously add current element
        # to final sum
        sum += i
     
    # Return our sum
    return sum
 
 
# Create a test array
testArray = [1, 3, 34, 92, 29, 48, 20.3]
 
# Test our function
print('The sum of your numbers is ' + str(sum(testArray)))


Output: 

The sum of your numbers is 227.3

Now that we’ve seen how many lines it takes to write just this simple summation function, let’s test out NumPy’s sum() function to see how it compares.

Python3




# Import NumPy Library
import numpy as np
 
# Let's begin with an example array
# Initialize our array
array = [1, 4, 2.5, 3, 7.4, 8]
 
# Utilize the sum() function
print('The sum of these numbers is ' + str(np.sum(array)))


Output:

The sum of these numbers is 25.9

Let’s see some more examples for understanding the usage of this function. One thing to note before going any further is that if the sum() function is called with a two-dimensional array, the sum() function will return the sum of all elements in that array.

Example 1:

In this example, we’ll just do another simple summation of a one-dimensional array, just as we have seen before. It’ll get more exciting later on though!

Python3




# Import NumPy
import numpy as np
 
# Initialize our test array
array = [0.5, 1.5]
 
# Call our sum() function
print(np.sum(array))


Output:

2.0

Example 2:

In this example, we’ll go over summing a two-dimensional array. Still pretty basic.

Python3




# Import NumPy Library
import numpy as np
 
# Initialize our array
array = [[1, 3.4, 4.5], [3.45, 5.6, 9.8],
         [4.5, 5, 6.3]]
 
# Call our sum() function
print(np.sum(array))


Output: 

43.55

Example 3:

Let’s try to use the optional parameters to try and manipulate our output. Let’s try out the axis parameter.

Python3




# Import NumPy
import numpy as np
 
# Initialize our array
array = [[0, 1], [0, 5]]
 
# Let's say we want to sum each sub array
# Sums will be returned separately in array
# format Call sum() function
print(np.sum(array, axis = 1))


Output:

[1 5]

Example 4:

Let’s try using the initial parameter to initialize our sum value. Essentially, the initial value gets added to the sum of the elements of the array. This is useful in certain problems utilizing counters.

Python3




# Import NumPy Library
import numpy as np
 
# Initialize our array
array = [1.5, 3, 5.6]
 
# Call our sum() function
# initial = 3
print(np.sum(array, initial = 3))


Output: 

13.1

Example 5:

If the accumulator for the sum is too small, then we get issues as far as overflow. Though this won’t directly throw an error, we will get issues with the results being unreliable. Let’s take a look at an example. We’ll use NumPy’s ones() function to automatically create an array of a given length that is filled with ones.

Python3




# Import NumPy Library
import numpy as np
 
# Initialize our array
array = np.ones(250, dtype=np.int8)
 
# Call our sum() function with a specified
# accumulator type
print(np.sum(array, dtype=np.int8))
 
# Expected Output: 250


Output:

-6


Last Updated : 16 Jun, 2022
Like Article
Save Article
Previous
Next
Share your thoughts in the comments
Similar Reads