How to add an extra column to a NumPy array

Let’s say I have a NumPy array, a:

a = np.array([
    [1, 2, 3],
    [2, 3, 4]
    ])

And I would like to add a column of zeros to get an array, b:

b = np.array([
    [1, 2, 3, 0],
    [2, 3, 4, 0]
    ])

How can I do this easily in NumPy?


np.r_[ ... ] and np.c_[ ... ] are useful alternatives to vstack and hstack, with square brackets [] instead of round ().
A couple of examples:

: import numpy as np
: N = 3
: A = np.eye(N)

: np.c_[ A, np.ones(N) ]              # add a column
array([[ 1.,  0.,  0.,  1.],
       [ 0.,  1.,  0.,  1.],
       [ 0.,  0.,  1.,  1.]])

: np.c_[ np.ones(N), A, np.ones(N) ]  # or two
array([[ 1.,  1.,  0.,  0.,  1.],
       [ 1.,  0.,  1.,  0.,  1.],
       [ 1.,  0.,  0.,  1.,  1.]])

: np.r_[ A, [A[1]] ]              # add a row
array([[ 1.,  0.,  0.],
       [ 0.,  1.,  0.],
       [ 0.,  0.,  1.],
       [ 0.,  1.,  0.]])
: # not np.r_[ A, A[1] ]

: np.r_[ A[0], 1, 2, 3, A[1] ]    # mix vecs and scalars
  array([ 1.,  0.,  0.,  1.,  2.,  3.,  0.,  1.,  0.])

: np.r_[ A[0], [1, 2, 3], A[1] ]  # lists
  array([ 1.,  0.,  0.,  1.,  2.,  3.,  0.,  1.,  0.])

: np.r_[ A[0], (1, 2, 3), A[1] ]  # tuples
  array([ 1.,  0.,  0.,  1.,  2.,  3.,  0.,  1.,  0.])

: np.r_[ A[0], 1:4, A[1] ]        # same, 1:4 == arange(1,4) == 1,2,3
  array([ 1.,  0.,  0.,  1.,  2.,  3.,  0.,  1.,  0.])

(The reason for square brackets [] instead of round () is that Python expands e.g. 1:4 in square -- the wonders of overloading.)


I think a more straightforward solution and faster to boot is to do the following:

import numpy as np
N = 10
a = np.random.rand(N,N)
b = np.zeros((N,N+1))
b[:,:-1] = a

And timings:

In [23]: N = 10

In [24]: a = np.random.rand(N,N)

In [25]: %timeit b = np.hstack((a,np.zeros((a.shape[0],1))))
10000 loops, best of 3: 19.6 us per loop

In [27]: %timeit b = np.zeros((a.shape[0],a.shape[1]+1)); b[:,:-1] = a
100000 loops, best of 3: 5.62 us per loop

Use numpy.append:

>>> a = np.array([[1,2,3],[2,3,4]])
>>> a
array([[1, 2, 3],
       [2, 3, 4]])

>>> z = np.zeros((2,1), dtype=int64)
>>> z
array([[0],
       [0]])

>>> np.append(a, z, axis=1)
array([[1, 2, 3, 0],
       [2, 3, 4, 0]])

One way, using hstack, is:

b = np.hstack((a, np.zeros((a.shape[0], 1), dtype=a.dtype)))