# How do I replace part of a matrix?

Imagine we have:

a = RandomInteger[1, {50, 150, 53}];
b = RandomInteger[1, {50, 150, 53}];
mask = RandomInteger[1, {50, 150, 53}];


One way to do this when a and b may contain any kind of symbolic expression could be

With[{pos = Position[mask, 1]},
]


Here, first you get the positions at which mask contains 1. Then, you replace every part of a at these positions with the corresponding entry of b at this position.

Assuming a, b, and mask only contain 0 or 1 you can use the much faster solution:

a - BitAnd[a, mask] + BitAnd[b, mask]


or, even faster:

BitOr[BitAnd[a, BitNot[mask]], BitAnd[b, mask]]


Here are the timings in comparison:

a - BitAnd[a, mask] + BitAnd[b, mask] // RepeatedTiming // First
(* 0.012 *)

(* 0.0075 *)


the latter being even faster than @Shadowray's solution:

(b - a)*mask + a // RepeatedTiming // First
(* 0.0098 *)


If mask may contain only zeros and ones, then you can do such assignment arithmetically:

(b - a)*mask + a


Since arithmetic operations on arrays are highly optimized, this solution should be quite fast:

(b - a)*mask + a; // RepeatedTiming // First


0.000885

• I think this gives a wrong result. Try, e.g., a = ConstantArray[ 1, {2, 3}]; b = {{1, 1, 1}, {0, 0, 0}}; mask = {{1, 0, 0}, {0, 1, 1}}; – JEM_Mosig Jul 11 '17 at 21:30
• @JEM_Mosig I have corrected the answer (exchanged a and b) – Shadowray Jul 11 '17 at 21:36