Derivative at the Edge

Question

My preferred way to approximate a derivative is the central difference, its more accurate than forward difference or backward difference, and I'm too lazy to go higher-order. But the central difference requires a data point on either side of point you are evaluating. Normally this means you end up not having a derivative at either endpoint. To solve it, I want you to switch to forward and backward difference at the edges:

Specifically, I want you to use a forward difference for the first point, a backward difference for the last point, and a central difference for all the points in the middle. Also, you can assume x values are evenly spaced, and focus only on y. Use these formulas:

Good luck, I'm looking forward to seeing if someone comes up with a simple rule which reproduces all 3 derivatives in the right places!

EX INPUT:

0.034  9.62    8.885   3.477   2.38

I will use FD, CD, and BD to denote which algorithm to use in which spot, so above 5 points are used to approximate derivatives using

FD     CD      CD      CD     BD

And then the calculated values would be:

9.586  4.4255 -3.0715 -3.2525 -1.097 

You can assume that there will always be at least 3 input points, and you can calculate using single or double precision.

And as always, shortest answer wins.

Answer 1

Jelly, 13 10 bytes

I.ịṚjI+2\H

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How it works

I.ịṚjI+2\H  Main link. Argument: A (array)

I           Increments; compute the deltas of consecutive values.
            For [a, b, c, d, e], this yields [b-a, c-b, d-c, e-d].
 .ị         At-index 0.5; get the the last and first element.
            This yields [e-d, b-a].
   Ṛ        Reverse the pair.
            This yields [b-a, e-d].
    jI      Join, separating by the increments.
            This yields [b-a, b-a, c-b, d-c, e-d, e-d].
      +2\   Add the values of all overlapping pairs.
            This yields [2(b-a), c-a, d-b, e-c, 2(e-d)].
         H  Halve all resulting numbers.
            This yields [b-a, (c-a)/2, (d-b)/2, (e-c)/2, e-d]. 

Answer 2

MATL, 21 15 bytes

2/d1)6Mh8Mt0)h+

TryItOnline

Halves the input vector, and takes successive differences, to give d=[i(2)-i(1) i(3)-i(2) ... i(end)-i(end-1)]/2 and then makes two modified vectors, [d(1) d] and [d d(end)], and adds them.

The older version was better (because convolution), but 21 bytes

d1j)6M1)6MTT2/H3$Y+bv

Answer 3

Python with NumPy, 29 bytes

import numpy;numpy.gradient

This happens to be the default behaviour of NumPy's gradient function. The bytes were counted according to this consensus.

Answer 4

05AB1E, 20 19 17 14 bytes

¥Ð¦øO;s¤s0èŠ)˜

Explained

¥Ð              # triplicate deltas of list
                  [9.585999999999999, -0.7349999999999994, -5.4079999999999995, -1.097]
  ¦øO;          # get central difference (fold addition over deltas and divide by 2)
                  [4.4254999999999995, -3.0714999999999995, -3.2524999999999995]
      s¤        # get backwards difference
                  -1.097
        s0è     # get forwards difference
                  9.585999999999999
           Š)˜  # reorder differences, merge to list and flatten
                  [9.585999999999999, 4.4254999999999995, -3.0714999999999995, -3.2524999999999995, -1.097]

Try it online

Saved 2 bytes thanks to @Adnan

Answer 5

Julia, 8 bytes

gradient

Inspired by @MartinEnder's Python answer. Try it online!

Answer 6

Pyth, 14 bytes

.OM>L2._seB-Vt

Try it online: Demonstration

Explanation:

.OM>L2._seB-VtQQ   implicitly add two Qs (input arrays) at the end
           -VtQQ   get all neighbored differences
        seB        get the last element of ^ and append it to ^
      ._           compute all prefixes
   >L2             reduce all prefixes to the last two elements
.OM                compute the average of each ^

Answer 7

J, 21 bytes

[:((,{:)+{.,])2-~/\-:

Similar to the approach used in @David's solution.

Usage

   f =: [:((,{:)+{.,])2-~/\-:
   f 0.034 9.62 8.885 3.477 2.38
9.586 4.4255 _3.0715 _3.2525 _1.097

Explanation

[:((,{:)+{.,])2-~/\-:  Input: list A
                   -:  Halve each value in A
              2   \    Select each overlapping sublist of size 2 in A
               -~/     Reduce it using subtraction to get the difference
[:(          )         Operate on the list of differences, call it D
            ]          Identity function, returns D
         {.            Get the head of D
           ,           Join them to get [head(D), D]
   ( {:)               Get the tail of D
    ,                  Join them to get [D, tail(D)]
        +              Add them together elementwise to get the derivatives and return

Answer 8

Pyth - 29 bytes

Stupid simple approach.

s[_-F<Q2mc-@Qhd@Qtd2tUtQ_-F>2

Try it online here.

Answer 9

JavaScript (ES6), 62 bytes

a=>a.map((_,i)=>i&&i--<a.length-2?(a[i+2]-a[i])/2:a[i+1]-a[i])

Answer 10

Pyth, 27 24 23 21 bytes

.bcF_-VNYK++]hJ,VUQQJ]eJttK
.bcF-VYN+]hJ,VQUQJ+tJ]eJ
++hJ-V+tQeQ+hQQcR2PtJeJ
*V++1*].5ttlQ1-V+tQeQ+h
*V++1m.5ttQ1-V+tQeQ+h

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