Is there a SciPy function or NumPy function or module for Python that calculates the running mean of a 1D array given a specific window?

For a short, fast solution that does the whole thing in one loop, without dependencies, the code below works great.

mylist = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
N = 3
cumsum, moving_aves = [0], []

for i, x in enumerate(mylist, 1):
    cumsum.append(cumsum[i-1] + x)
    if i>=N:
        moving_ave = (cumsum[i] - cumsum[i-N])/N
        #can do stuff with moving_ave here
        moving_aves.append(moving_ave)

UPD: more efficient solutions have been proposed by Alleo and jasaarim.

You can use np.convolve for that:

np.convolve(x, np.ones((N,))/N, mode='valid')

Explanation

The running mean is a case of the mathematical operation of convolution. For the running mean, you slide a window along the input and compute the mean of the window’s contents. For discrete 1D signals, convolution is the same thing, except instead of the mean you compute an arbitrary linear combination, i.e. multiply each element by a corresponding coefficient and add up the results. Those coefficients, one for each position in the window, are sometimes called the convolution kernel. Now, the arithmetic mean of N values is (x_1 + x_2 + ... + x_N) / N, so the corresponding kernel is (1/N, 1/N, ..., 1/N), and that’s exactly what we get by using np.ones((N,))/N.

Edges

The mode argument of np.convolve specifies how to handle the edges. I chose the valid mode here because I think that’s how most people expect the running mean to work, but you may have other priorities. Here is a plot that illustrates the difference between the modes:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
modes = ['full', 'same', 'valid']
for m in modes:
    plt.plot(np.convolve(np.ones((200,)), np.ones((50,))/50, mode=m));
plt.axis([-10, 251, -.1, 1.1]);
plt.legend(modes, loc='lower center');
plt.show()

Efficient solution

Convolution is much better than straightforward approach, but (I guess) it uses FFT and thus quite slow. However specially for computing the running mean the following approach works fine

def running_mean(x, N):
    cumsum = numpy.cumsum(numpy.insert(x, 0, 0)) 
    return (cumsum[N:] - cumsum[:-N]) / float(N)

The code to check

In[3]: x = numpy.random.random(100000)
In[4]: N = 1000
In[5]: %timeit result1 = numpy.convolve(x, numpy.ones((N,))/N, mode='valid')
10 loops, best of 3: 41.4 ms per loop
In[6]: %timeit result2 = running_mean(x, N)
1000 loops, best of 3: 1.04 ms per loop

Note that numpy.allclose(result1, result2) is True, two methods are equivalent. The greater N, the greater difference in time.

warning: although cumsum is faster there will be increased floating point error that may cause your results to be invalid/incorrect/unacceptable

the comments pointed out this floating point error issue here but i am making it more obvious here in the answer..

# demonstrate loss of precision with only 100,000 points
np.random.seed(42)
x = np.random.randn(100000)+1e6
y1 = running_mean_convolve(x, 10)
y2 = running_mean_cumsum(x, 10)
assert np.allclose(y1, y2, rtol=1e-12, atol=0)

• the more points you accumulate over the greater the floating point error (so 1e5 points is noticable, 1e6 points is more significant, more than 1e6 and you may want to resetting the accumulators)
• you can cheat by using np.longdouble but your floating point error still will get significant for relatively large number of points (around >1e5 but depends on your data)
• you can plot the error and see it increasing relatively fast
• the convolve solution is slower but does not have this floating point loss of precision
• the uniform_filter1d solution is faster than this cumsum solution AND does not have this floating point loss of precision

Update: The example below shows the old pandas.rolling_mean function which has been removed in recent versions of pandas. A modern equivalent of the function call below would be

In [8]: pd.Series(x).rolling(window=N).mean().iloc[N-1:].values
Out[8]: 
array([ 0.49815397,  0.49844183,  0.49840518, ...,  0.49488191,
        0.49456679,  0.49427121])

pandas is more suitable for this than NumPy or SciPy. Its function rolling_mean does the job conveniently. It also returns a NumPy array when the input is an array.

It is difficult to beat rolling_mean in performance with any custom pure Python implementation. Here is an example performance against two of the proposed solutions:

In [1]: import numpy as np

In [2]: import pandas as pd

In [3]: def running_mean(x, N):
   ...:     cumsum = np.cumsum(np.insert(x, 0, 0)) 
   ...:     return (cumsum[N:] - cumsum[:-N]) / N
   ...:

In [4]: x = np.random.random(100000)

In [5]: N = 1000

In [6]: %timeit np.convolve(x, np.ones((N,))/N, mode='valid')
10 loops, best of 3: 172 ms per loop

In [7]: %timeit running_mean(x, N)
100 loops, best of 3: 6.72 ms per loop

In [8]: %timeit pd.rolling_mean(x, N)[N-1:]
100 loops, best of 3: 4.74 ms per loop

In [9]: np.allclose(pd.rolling_mean(x, N)[N-1:], running_mean(x, N))
Out[9]: True

There are also nice options as to how to deal with the edge values.

You can calculate a running mean with:

import numpy as np

def runningMean(x, N):
    y = np.zeros((len(x),))
    for ctr in range(len(x)):
         y[ctr] = np.sum(x[ctr:(ctr+N)])
    return y/N

But it’s slow.

Fortunately, numpy includes a convolve function which we can use to speed things up. The running mean is equivalent to convolving x with a vector that is N long, with all members equal to 1/N. The numpy implementation of convolve includes the starting transient, so you have to remove the first N-1 points:

def runningMeanFast(x, N):
    return np.convolve(x, np.ones((N,))/N)[(N-1):]

On my machine, the fast version is 20-30 times faster, depending on the length of the input vector and size of the averaging window.

Note that convolve does include a 'same' mode which seems like it should address the starting transient issue, but it splits it between the beginning and end.

or module for python that calculates

in my tests at Tradewave.net TA-lib always wins:

import talib as ta
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import scipy
from scipy import signal
import time as t

PAIR = info.primary_pair
PERIOD = 30

def initialize():
    storage.reset()
    storage.elapsed = storage.get('elapsed', [0,0,0,0,0,0])

def cumsum_sma(array, period):
    ret = np.cumsum(array, dtype=float)
    ret[period:] = ret[period:] - ret[:-period]
    return ret[period - 1:] / period

def pandas_sma(array, period):
    return pd.rolling_mean(array, period)

def api_sma(array, period):
    # this method is native to Tradewave and does NOT return an array
    return (data[PAIR].ma(PERIOD))

def talib_sma(array, period):
    return ta.MA(array, period)

def convolve_sma(array, period):
    return np.convolve(array, np.ones((period,))/period, mode='valid')

def fftconvolve_sma(array, period):    
    return scipy.signal.fftconvolve(
        array, np.ones((period,))/period, mode='valid')    

def tick():

    close = data[PAIR].warmup_period('close')

    t1 = t.time()
    sma_api = api_sma(close, PERIOD)
    t2 = t.time()
    sma_cumsum = cumsum_sma(close, PERIOD)
    t3 = t.time()
    sma_pandas = pandas_sma(close, PERIOD)
    t4 = t.time()
    sma_talib = talib_sma(close, PERIOD)
    t5 = t.time()
    sma_convolve = convolve_sma(close, PERIOD)
    t6 = t.time()
    sma_fftconvolve = fftconvolve_sma(close, PERIOD)
    t7 = t.time()

    storage.elapsed[-1] = storage.elapsed[-1] + t2-t1
    storage.elapsed[-2] = storage.elapsed[-2] + t3-t2
    storage.elapsed[-3] = storage.elapsed[-3] + t4-t3
    storage.elapsed[-4] = storage.elapsed[-4] + t5-t4
    storage.elapsed[-5] = storage.elapsed[-5] + t6-t5    
    storage.elapsed[-6] = storage.elapsed[-6] + t7-t6        

    plot('sma_api', sma_api)  
    plot('sma_cumsum', sma_cumsum[-5])
    plot('sma_pandas', sma_pandas[-10])
    plot('sma_talib', sma_talib[-15])
    plot('sma_convolve', sma_convolve[-20])    
    plot('sma_fftconvolve', sma_fftconvolve[-25])

def stop():

    log('ticks....: %s' % info.max_ticks)

    log('api......: %.5f' % storage.elapsed[-1])
    log('cumsum...: %.5f' % storage.elapsed[-2])
    log('pandas...: %.5f' % storage.elapsed[-3])
    log('talib....: %.5f' % storage.elapsed[-4])
    log('convolve.: %.5f' % storage.elapsed[-5])    
    log('fft......: %.5f' % storage.elapsed[-6])

results:

[2015-01-31 23:00:00] ticks....: 744
[2015-01-31 23:00:00] api......: 0.16445
[2015-01-31 23:00:00] cumsum...: 0.03189
[2015-01-31 23:00:00] pandas...: 0.03677
[2015-01-31 23:00:00] talib....: 0.00700  # <<< Winner!
[2015-01-31 23:00:00] convolve.: 0.04871
[2015-01-31 23:00:00] fft......: 0.22306

For a ready-to-use solution, see https://scipy-cookbook.readthedocs.io/items/SignalSmooth.html. It provides running average with the flat window type. Note that this is a bit more sophisticated than the simple do-it-yourself convolve-method, since it tries to handle the problems at the beginning and the end of the data by reflecting it (which may or may not work in your case…).

To start with, you could try:

a = np.random.random(100)
plt.plot(a)
b = smooth(a, window='flat')
plt.plot(b)

You can use scipy.ndimage.filters.uniform_filter1d:

import numpy as np
from scipy.ndimage.filters import uniform_filter1d
N = 1000
x = np.random.random(100000)
y = uniform_filter1d(x, size=N)

uniform_filter1d:

• gives the output with the same numpy shape (i.e. number of points)
• allows multiple ways to handle the border where 'reflect' is the default, but in my case, I rather wanted 'nearest'

It is also rather quick (nearly 50 times faster than np.convolve and 2-5 times faster than the cumsum approach given above):

%timeit y1 = np.convolve(x, np.ones((N,))/N, mode='same')
100 loops, best of 3: 9.28 ms per loop

%timeit y2 = uniform_filter1d(x, size=N)
10000 loops, best of 3: 191 µs per loop

here’s 3 functions that let you compare error/speed of different implementations:

from __future__ import division
import numpy as np
import scipy.ndimage.filters as ndif
def running_mean_convolve(x, N):
    return np.convolve(x, np.ones(N) / float(N), 'valid')
def running_mean_cumsum(x, N):
    cumsum = np.cumsum(np.insert(x, 0, 0))
    return (cumsum[N:] - cumsum[:-N]) / float(N)
def running_mean_uniform_filter1d(x, N):
    return ndif.uniform_filter1d(x, N, mode='constant', origin=-(N//2))[:-(N-1)]

I know this is an old question, but here is a solution that doesn’t use any extra data structures or libraries. It is linear in the number of elements of the input list and I cannot think of any other way to make it more efficient (actually if anyone knows of a better way to allocate the result, please let me know).

NOTE: this would be much faster using a numpy array instead of a list, but I wanted to eliminate all dependencies. It would also be possible to improve performance by multi-threaded execution

The function assumes that the input list is one dimensional, so be careful.

### Running mean/Moving average
def running_mean(l, N):
    sum = 0
    result = list( 0 for x in l)

    for i in range( 0, N ):
        sum = sum + l[i]
        result[i] = sum / (i+1)

    for i in range( N, len(l) ):
        sum = sum - l[i-N] + l[i]
        result[i] = sum / N

    return result

Example

Assume that we have a list data = [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ] on which we want to compute a rolling mean with period of 3, and that you also want a output list that is the same size of the input one (that’s most often the case).

The first element has index 0, so the rolling mean should be computed on elements of index -2, -1 and 0. Obviously we don’t have data[-2] and data[-1] (unless you want to use special boundary conditions), so we assume that those elements are 0. This is equivalent to zero-padding the list, except we don’t actually pad it, just keep track of the indices that require padding (from 0 to N-1).

So, for the first N elements we just keep adding up the elements in an accumulator.

result[0] = (0 + 0 + 1) / 3  = 0.333    ==   (sum + 1) / 3
result[1] = (0 + 1 + 2) / 3  = 1        ==   (sum + 2) / 3
result[2] = (1 + 2 + 3) / 3  = 2        ==   (sum + 3) / 3

From elements N+1 forwards simple accumulation doesn’t work. we expect result[3] = (2 + 3 + 4)/3 = 3 but this is different from (sum + 4)/3 = 3.333.

The way to compute the correct value is to subtract data[0] = 1 from sum+4, thus giving sum + 4 - 1 = 9.

This happens because currently sum = data[0] + data[1] + data[2], but it is also true for every i >= N because, before the subtraction, sum is data[i-N] + ... + data[i-2] + data[i-1].

I feel this can be elegantly solved using bottleneck

See basic sample below:

import numpy as np
import bottleneck as bn

a = np.random.randint(4, 1000, size=100)
mm = bn.move_mean(a, window=5, min_count=1)

• “mm” is the moving mean for “a”.

• “window” is the max number of entries to consider for moving mean.

• “min_count” is min number of entries to consider for moving mean (e.g. for first few elements or if the array has nan values).

The good part is Bottleneck helps to deal with nan values and it’s also very efficient.

I haven’t yet checked how fast this is, but you could try:

from collections import deque

cache = deque() # keep track of seen values
n = 10          # window size
A = xrange(100) # some dummy iterable
cum_sum = 0     # initialize cumulative sum

for t, val in enumerate(A, 1):
    cache.append(val)
    cum_sum += val
    if t < n:
        avg = cum_sum / float(t)
    else:                           # if window is saturated,
        cum_sum -= cache.popleft()  # subtract oldest value
        avg = cum_sum / float(n)

This answer contains solutions using the Python standard library for three different scenarios.

Running average with itertools.accumulate

This is a memory efficient Python 3.2+ solution computing the running average over an iterable of values by leveraging itertools.accumulate.

>>> from itertools import accumulate
>>> values = range(100)

Note that values can be any iterable, including generators or any other object that produces values on the fly.

First, lazily construct the cumulative sum of the values.

>>> cumu_sum = accumulate(value_stream)

Next, enumerate the cumulative sum (starting at 1) and construct a generator that yields the fraction of accumulated values and the current enumeration index.

>>> rolling_avg = (accu/i for i, accu in enumerate(cumu_sum, 1))

You can issue means = list(rolling_avg) if you need all the values in memory at once or call next incrementally.
(Of course, you can also iterate over rolling_avg with a for loop, which will call next implicitly.)

>>> next(rolling_avg) # 0/1
>>> 0.0
>>> next(rolling_avg) # (0 + 1)/2
>>> 0.5
>>> next(rolling_avg) # (0 + 1 + 2)/3
>>> 1.0

This solution can be written as a function as follows.

from itertools import accumulate

def rolling_avg(iterable):
    cumu_sum = accumulate(iterable)
    yield from (accu/i for i, accu in enumerate(cumu_sum, 1))
    

A coroutine to which you can send values at any time

This coroutine consumes values you send it and keeps a running average of the values seen so far.

It is useful when you don’t have an iterable of values but aquire the values to be averaged one by one at different times throughout your program’s life.

def rolling_avg_coro():
    i = 0
    total = 0.0
    avg = None

    while True:
        next_value = yield avg
        i += 1
        total += next_value
        avg = total/i
        

The coroutine works like this:

>>> averager = rolling_avg_coro() # instantiate coroutine
>>> next(averager) # get coroutine going (this is called priming)
>>>
>>> averager.send(5) # 5/1
>>> 5.0
>>> averager.send(3) # (5 + 3)/2
>>> 4.0
>>> print('doing something else...')
doing something else...
>>> averager.send(13) # (5 + 3 + 13)/3
>>> 7.0

Computing the average over a sliding window of size N

This generator-function takes an iterable and a window size N and yields the average over the current values inside the window. It uses a deque, which is a datastructure similar to a list, but optimized for fast modifications (pop, append) at both endpoints.

from collections import deque
from itertools import islice

def sliding_avg(iterable, N):        
    it = iter(iterable)
    window = deque(islice(it, N))        
    num_vals = len(window)

    if num_vals < N:
        msg = 'window size {} exceeds total number of values {}'
        raise ValueError(msg.format(N, num_vals))

    N = float(N) # force floating point division if using Python 2
    s = sum(window)
    
    while True:
        yield s/N
        try:
            nxt = next(it)
        except StopIteration:
            break
        s = s - window.popleft() + nxt
        window.append(nxt)
        

Here is the function in action:

>>> values = range(100)
>>> N = 5
>>> window_avg = sliding_avg(values, N)
>>> 
>>> next(window_avg) # (0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4)/5
>>> 2.0
>>> next(window_avg) # (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5)/5
>>> 3.0
>>> next(window_avg) # (2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6)/5
>>> 4.0

A bit late to the party, but I’ve made my own little function that does NOT wrap around the ends or pads with zeroes that are then used to find the average as well. As a further treat is, that it also re-samples the signal at linearly spaced points. Customize the code at will to get other features.

The method is a simple matrix multiplication with a normalized Gaussian kernel.

def running_mean(y_in, x_in, N_out=101, sigma=1):
    '''
    Returns running mean as a Bell-curve weighted average at evenly spaced
    points. Does NOT wrap signal around, or pad with zeros.

    Arguments:
    y_in -- y values, the values to be smoothed and re-sampled
    x_in -- x values for array

    Keyword arguments:
    N_out -- NoOf elements in resampled array.
    sigma -- 'Width' of Bell-curve in units of param x .
    '''
    N_in = size(y_in)

    # Gaussian kernel
    x_out = np.linspace(np.min(x_in), np.max(x_in), N_out)
    x_in_mesh, x_out_mesh = np.meshgrid(x_in, x_out)
    gauss_kernel = np.exp(-np.square(x_in_mesh - x_out_mesh) / (2 * sigma**2))
    # Normalize kernel, such that the sum is one along axis 1
    normalization = np.tile(np.reshape(sum(gauss_kernel, axis=1), (N_out, 1)), (1, N_in))
    gauss_kernel_normalized = gauss_kernel / normalization
    # Perform running average as a linear operation
    y_out = gauss_kernel_normalized @ y_in

    return y_out, x_out

A simple usage on a sinusoidal signal with added normal distributed noise:

Instead of numpy or scipy, I would recommend pandas to do this more swiftly:

df['data'].rolling(3).mean()

This takes the moving average (MA) of 3 periods of the column “data”. You can also calculate the shifted versions, for example the one that excludes the current cell (shifted one back) can be calculated easily as:

df['data'].shift(periods=1).rolling(3).mean()

There is a comment by mab buried in one of the answers above which has this method. bottleneck has move_mean which is a simple moving average:

import numpy as np
import bottleneck as bn

a = np.arange(10) + np.random.random(10)

mva = bn.move_mean(a, window=2, min_count=1)

min_count is a handy parameter that will basically take the moving average up to that point in your array. If you don’t set min_count, it will equal window, and everything up to window points will be nan.

Another approach to find moving average without using numpy, panda

import itertools
sample = [2, 6, 10, 8, 11, 10]
list(itertools.starmap(lambda a,b: b/a, 
               enumerate(itertools.accumulate(sample), 1)))

will print [2.0, 4.0, 6.0, 6.5, 7.4, 7.833333333333333]

This question is now even older than when NeXuS wrote about it last month, BUT I like how his code deals with edge cases. However, because it is a “simple moving average,” its results lag behind the data they apply to. I thought that dealing with edge cases in a more satisfying way than NumPy’s modes valid, same, and full could be achieved by applying a similar approach to a convolution() based method.

My contribution uses a central running average to align its results with their data. When there are too few points available for the full-sized window to be used, running averages are computed from successively smaller windows at the edges of the array. [Actually, from successively larger windows, but that’s an implementation detail.]

import numpy as np

def running_mean(l, N):
    # Also works for the(strictly invalid) cases when N is even.
    if (N//2)*2 == N:
        N = N - 1
    front = np.zeros(N//2)
    back = np.zeros(N//2)

    for i in range(1, (N//2)*2, 2):
        front[i//2] = np.convolve(l[:i], np.ones((i,))/i, mode = 'valid')
    for i in range(1, (N//2)*2, 2):
        back[i//2] = np.convolve(l[-i:], np.ones((i,))/i, mode = 'valid')
    return np.concatenate([front, np.convolve(l, np.ones((N,))/N, mode = 'valid'), back[::-1]])

It’s relatively slow because it uses convolve(), and could likely be spruced up quite a lot by a true Pythonista, however, I believe that the idea stands.

There are many answers above about calculating a running mean. My answer adds two extra features:

1. ignores nan values
2. calculates the mean for the N neighboring values NOT including the value of interest itself

This second feature is particularly useful for determining which values differ from the general trend by a certain amount.

I use numpy.cumsum since it is the most time-efficient method (see Alleo’s answer above).

N=10 # number of points to test on each side of point of interest, best if even
padded_x = np.insert(np.insert( np.insert(x, len(x), np.empty(int(N/2))*np.nan), 0, np.empty(int(N/2))*np.nan ),0,0)
n_nan = np.cumsum(np.isnan(padded_x))
cumsum = np.nancumsum(padded_x) 
window_sum = cumsum[N+1:] - cumsum[:-(N+1)] - x # subtract value of interest from sum of all values within window
window_n_nan = n_nan[N+1:] - n_nan[:-(N+1)] - np.isnan(x)
window_n_values = (N - window_n_nan)
movavg = (window_sum) / (window_n_values)

This code works for even Ns only. It can be adjusted for odd numbers by changing the np.insert of padded_x and n_nan.

Example output (raw in black, movavg in blue):

This code can be easily adapted to remove all moving average values calculated from fewer than cutoff = 3 non-nan values.

window_n_values = (N - window_n_nan).astype(float) # dtype must be float to set some values to nan
cutoff = 3
window_n_values[window_n_values<cutoff] = np.nan
movavg = (window_sum) / (window_n_values)

Use Only Python Standard Library (Memory Efficient)

Just give another version of using the standard library deque only. It’s quite a surprise to me that most of the answers are using pandas or numpy.

def moving_average(iterable, n=3):
    d = deque(maxlen=n)
    for i in iterable:
        d.append(i)
        if len(d) == n:
            yield sum(d)/n

r = moving_average([40, 30, 50, 46, 39, 44])
assert list(r) == [40.0, 42.0, 45.0, 43.0]

Actually I found another implementation in python docs

def moving_average(iterable, n=3):
    # moving_average([40, 30, 50, 46, 39, 44]) --> 40.0 42.0 45.0 43.0
    # http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_average
    it = iter(iterable)
    d = deque(itertools.islice(it, n-1))
    d.appendleft(0)
    s = sum(d)
    for elem in it:
        s += elem - d.popleft()
        d.append(elem)
        yield s / n

However the implementation seems to me is a bit more complex than it should be. But it must be in the standard python docs for a reason, could someone comment on the implementation of mine and the standard doc?

With @Aikude’s variables, I wrote one-liner.

import numpy as np

mylist = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
N = 3

mean = [np.mean(mylist[x:x+N]) for x in range(len(mylist)-N+1)]
print(mean)

>>> [2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0]

Although there are solutions for this question here, please take a look at my solution. It is very simple and working well.

import numpy as np
dataset = np.asarray([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7])
ma = list()
window = 3
for t in range(0, len(dataset)):
    if t+window <= len(dataset):
        indices = range(t, t+window)
        ma.append(np.average(np.take(dataset, indices)))
else:
    ma = np.asarray(ma)

From reading the other answers I don’t think this is what the question asked for, but I got here with the need of keeping a running average of a list of values that was growing in size.

So if you want to keep a list of values that you are acquiring from somewhere (a site, a measuring device, etc.) and the average of the last n values updated, you can use the code bellow, that minimizes the effort of adding new elements:

class Running_Average(object):
    def __init__(self, buffer_size=10):
        """
        Create a new Running_Average object.

        This object allows the efficient calculation of the average of the last
        `buffer_size` numbers added to it.

        Examples
        --------
        >>> a = Running_Average(2)
        >>> a.add(1)
        >>> a.get()
        1.0
        >>> a.add(1)  # there are two 1 in buffer
        >>> a.get()
        1.0
        >>> a.add(2)  # there's a 1 and a 2 in the buffer
        >>> a.get()
        1.5
        >>> a.add(2)
        >>> a.get()  # now there's only two 2 in the buffer
        2.0
        """
        self._buffer_size = int(buffer_size)  # make sure it's an int
        self.reset()

    def add(self, new):
        """
        Add a new number to the buffer, or replaces the oldest one there.
        """
        new = float(new)  # make sure it's a float
        n = len(self._buffer)
        if n < self.buffer_size:  # still have to had numbers to the buffer.
            self._buffer.append(new)
            if self._average != self._average:  # ~ if isNaN().
                self._average = new  # no previous numbers, so it's new.
            else:
                self._average *= n  # so it's only the sum of numbers.
                self._average += new  # add new number.
                self._average /= (n+1)  # divide by new number of numbers.
        else:  # buffer full, replace oldest value.
            old = self._buffer[self._index]  # the previous oldest number.
            self._buffer[self._index] = new  # replace with new one.
            self._index += 1  # update the index and make sure it's...
            self._index %= self.buffer_size  # ... smaller than buffer_size.
            self._average -= old/self.buffer_size  # remove old one...
            self._average += new/self.buffer_size  # ...and add new one...
            # ... weighted by the number of elements.

    def __call__(self):
        """
        Return the moving average value, for the lazy ones who don't want
        to write .get .
        """
        return self._average

    def get(self):
        """
        Return the moving average value.
        """
        return self()

    def reset(self):
        """
        Reset the moving average.

        If for some reason you don't want to just create a new one.
        """
        self._buffer = []  # could use np.empty(self.buffer_size)...
        self._index = 0  # and use this to keep track of how many numbers.
        self._average = float('nan')  # could use np.NaN .

    def get_buffer_size(self):
        """
        Return current buffer_size.
        """
        return self._buffer_size

    def set_buffer_size(self, buffer_size):
        """
        >>> a = Running_Average(10)
        >>> for i in range(15):
        ...     a.add(i)
        ...
        >>> a()
        9.5
        >>> a._buffer  # should not access this!!
        [10.0, 11.0, 12.0, 13.0, 14.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0]

        Decreasing buffer size:
        >>> a.buffer_size = 6
        >>> a._buffer  # should not access this!!
        [9.0, 10.0, 11.0, 12.0, 13.0, 14.0]
        >>> a.buffer_size = 2
        >>> a._buffer
        [13.0, 14.0]

        Increasing buffer size:
        >>> a.buffer_size = 5
        Warning: no older data available!
        >>> a._buffer
        [13.0, 14.0]

        Keeping buffer size:
        >>> a = Running_Average(10)
        >>> for i in range(15):
        ...     a.add(i)
        ...
        >>> a()
        9.5
        >>> a._buffer  # should not access this!!
        [10.0, 11.0, 12.0, 13.0, 14.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0]
        >>> a.buffer_size = 10  # reorders buffer!
        >>> a._buffer
        [5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0, 10.0, 11.0, 12.0, 13.0, 14.0]
        """
        buffer_size = int(buffer_size)
        # order the buffer so index is zero again:
        new_buffer = self._buffer[self._index:]
        new_buffer.extend(self._buffer[:self._index])
        self._index = 0
        if self._buffer_size < buffer_size:
            print('Warning: no older data available!')  # should use Warnings!
        else:
            diff = self._buffer_size - buffer_size
            print(diff)
            new_buffer = new_buffer[diff:]
        self._buffer_size = buffer_size
        self._buffer = new_buffer

    buffer_size = property(get_buffer_size, set_buffer_size)

And you can test it with, for example:

def graph_test(N=200):
    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
    values = list(range(N))
    values_average_calculator = Running_Average(N/2)
    values_averages = []
    for value in values:
        values_average_calculator.add(value)
        values_averages.append(values_average_calculator())
    fig, ax = plt.subplots(1, 1)
    ax.plot(values, label='values')
    ax.plot(values_averages, label='averages')
    ax.grid()
    ax.set_xlim(0, N)
    ax.set_ylim(0, N)
    fig.show()

Which gives:

Another solution just using a standard library and deque:

from collections import deque
import itertools

def moving_average(iterable, n=3):
    # http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_average
    it = iter(iterable) 
    # create an iterable object from input argument
    d = deque(itertools.islice(it, n-1))  
    # create deque object by slicing iterable
    d.appendleft(0)
    s = sum(d)
    for elem in it:
        s += elem - d.popleft()
        d.append(elem)
        yield s / n

# example on how to use it
for i in  moving_average([40, 30, 50, 46, 39, 44]):
    print(i)

# 40.0
# 42.0
# 45.0
# 43.0

For educational purposes, let me add two more Numpy solutions (which are slower than the cumsum solution):

import numpy as np
from numpy.lib.stride_tricks import as_strided

def ra_strides(arr, window):
    ''' Running average using as_strided'''
    n = arr.shape[0] - window + 1
    arr_strided = as_strided(arr, shape=[n, window], strides=2*arr.strides)
    return arr_strided.mean(axis=1)

def ra_add(arr, window):
    ''' Running average using add.reduceat'''
    n = arr.shape[0] - window + 1
    indices = np.array([0, window]*n) + np.repeat(np.arange(n), 2)
    arr = np.append(arr, 0)
    return np.add.reduceat(arr, indices )[::2]/window

Functions used: as_strided, add.reduceat

All the aforementioned solutions are poor because they lack

• speed due to a native python instead of a numpy vectorized implementation,
• numerical stability due to poor use of numpy.cumsum, or
• speed due to O(len(x) * w) implementations as convolutions.

Given

import numpy
m = 10000
x = numpy.random.rand(m)
w = 1000

Note that x_[:w].sum() equals x[:w-1].sum(). So for the first average the numpy.cumsum(...) adds x[w] / w (via x_[w+1] / w), and subtracts 0 (from x_[0] / w). This results in x[0:w].mean()

Via cumsum, you’ll update the second average by additionally add x[w+1] / w and subtracting x[0] / w, resulting in x[1:w+1].mean().

This goes on until x[-w:].mean() is reached.

x_ = numpy.insert(x, 0, 0)
sliding_average = x_[:w].sum() / w + numpy.cumsum(x_[w:] - x_[:-w]) / w

This solution is vectorized, O(m), readable and numerically stable.

How about a moving average filter? It is also a one-liner and has the advantage, that you can easily manipulate the window type if you need something else than the rectangle, ie. a N-long simple moving average of an array a:

lfilter(np.ones(N)/N, [1], a)[N:]

And with the triangular window applied:

lfilter(np.ones(N)*scipy.signal.triang(N)/N, [1], a)[N:]

Note: I usually discard the first N samples as bogus hence [N:] at the end, but it is not necessary and the matter of a personal choice only.

If you do choose to roll your own, rather than use an existing library, please be conscious of floating point error and try to minimize its effects:

class SumAccumulator:
    def __init__(self):
        self.values = [0]
        self.count = 0

    def add( self, val ):
        self.values.append( val )
        self.count = self.count + 1
        i = self.count
        while i & 0x01:
            i = i >> 1
            v0 = self.values.pop()
            v1 = self.values.pop()
            self.values.append( v0 + v1 )

    def get_total(self):
        return sum( reversed(self.values) )

    def get_size( self ):
        return self.count

If all your values are roughly the same order of magnitude, then this will help to preserve precision by always adding values of roughly similar magnitudes.