Interweaving two numpy arrays

Assume the following arrays are given:

a = array([1,3,5])
b = array([2,4,6])

How would one interweave them efficiently so that one gets a third array like this

c = array([1,2,3,4,5,6])

It can be assumed that length(a)==length(b).

I like Josh's answer. I just wanted to add a more mundane, usual, and slightly more verbose solution. I don't know which is more efficient. I expect they will have similar performance.

import numpy as np
a = np.array([1,3,5])
b = np.array([2,4,6])

c = np.empty((a.size + b.size,), dtype=a.dtype)
c[0::2] = a
c[1::2] = b

I thought it might be worthwhile to check how the solutions performed in terms of performance. And this is the result:

This clearly shows that the most upvoted and accepted answer (Pauls answer) is also the fastest option.

The code was taken from the other answers and from another Q&A:

# Setup
import numpy as np

def Paul(a, b):
    c = np.empty((a.size + b.size,), dtype=a.dtype)
    c[0::2] = a
    c[1::2] = b
    return c

def JoshAdel(a, b):
    return np.vstack((a,b)).reshape((-1,),order='F')

def xioxox(a, b):
    return np.ravel(np.column_stack((a,b)))

def Benjamin(a, b):
    return np.vstack((a,b)).ravel([-1])

def andersonvom(a, b):
    return np.hstack( zip(a,b) )

def bhanukiran(a, b):
    return np.dstack((a,b)).flatten()

def Tai(a, b):
    return np.insert(b, obj=range(a.shape[0]), values=a)

def Will(a, b):
    return np.ravel((a,b), order='F')

# Timing setup
timings = {Paul: [], JoshAdel: [], xioxox: [], Benjamin: [], andersonvom: [], bhanukiran: [], Tai: [], Will: []}
sizes = [2**i for i in range(1, 20, 2)]

# Timing
for size in sizes:
    func_input1 = np.random.random(size=size)
    func_input2 = np.random.random(size=size)
    for func in timings:
        res = %timeit -o func(func_input1, func_input2)
        timings[func].append(res)

%matplotlib notebook

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

fig = plt.figure(1)
ax = plt.subplot(111)

for func in timings:
    ax.plot(sizes, 
            [time.best for time in timings[func]], 
            label=func.__name__)  # you could also use "func.__name__" here instead
ax.set_xscale('log')
ax.set_yscale('log')
ax.set_xlabel('size')
ax.set_ylabel('time [seconds]')
ax.grid(which='both')
ax.legend()
plt.tight_layout()

Just in case you have numba available you could also use that to create a function:

import numba as nb

@nb.njit
def numba_interweave(arr1, arr2):
    res = np.empty(arr1.size + arr2.size, dtype=arr1.dtype)
    for idx, (item1, item2) in enumerate(zip(arr1, arr2)):
        res[idx*2] = item1
        res[idx*2+1] = item2
    return res

It could be slightly faster than the other alternatives:

Here is a one-liner:

c = numpy.vstack((a,b)).reshape((-1,),order='F')

Here is a simpler answer than some of the previous ones

import numpy as np
a = np.array([1,3,5])
b = np.array([2,4,6])
inter = np.ravel(np.column_stack((a,b)))

After this inter contains:

array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6])

This answer also appears to be marginally faster:

In [4]: %timeit np.ravel(np.column_stack((a,b)))
100000 loops, best of 3: 6.31 µs per loop

In [8]: %timeit np.ravel(np.dstack((a,b)))
100000 loops, best of 3: 7.14 µs per loop

In [11]: %timeit np.vstack((a,b)).ravel([-1])
100000 loops, best of 3: 7.08 µs per loop