Change the value of a matrix according to the indexes stored in another one.

Hey, goodies, let's pretend I have the next matrix.

Z = zeros(5,6);

And in another matrix called idx I have the information of which rows and columns of Z I want to change the value, for example:

idx = [1 1; 2 5; 4 6]

Being the first column the position of the columns I want to change and the value of the second idx column the position of the rows I want to change, and if the value i want to obtein in Z in idx position is 5, what i expect to have is:

This is just an example, in the realization I have many values that I want to change, therefore the option:

Z(1,1) = 5;
Z(2,5) = 5;
Z(4,6) = 5;

Is not an option

I'm looking for something that allows me to do it automatically, without the need for loops, if anyone knows it would help me a lot, thanks.

Answer 1

[KSSV]

Read about sub2ind

Z  =zeros(5,6) ; 
idx = [1 1; 2 5; 4 6] ;

idx = sub2ind(size(Z),idx(:,1),idx(:,2)) ;
Z(idx) = 5

[Alejandro Fernández]

Thank you so much, it works

Answer 2

[Chris Angeloni]

You probably want to get the index as a linear subscript instead of row,column, then index a vectorized version of your original matrix.

Z = zeros(5,6);
idx = [1 1; 2 5; 4 6];

% save size of Z
sz = size(Z);

% vectorize Z
Z = Z(:);

% make row,col index to linear index
lInd = sub2ind(sz,idx(:,1),idx(:,2))
Z(lInd) = 5;

% resize Z to original size
Z = reshape(Z,sz(1),sz(2));

[Alejandro Fernández]

Thank you very much for the answer, it works, however KSSV's answer is much smaller in terms of code.

[Chris Angeloni]

Yes, I saw it after! I forgot you can use the linear index to index the original matrix