[R] Counting number of common elements between the rows of two different matrices

[Parodi, Pietro]

Hello

I'm trying to solve this problem without using a for loop but I have so
far failed to find a solution.

I have two matrices of K columns each, e.g. (K=5), and with numbers of
row N_A and N_B respectively

A = 	(1 5 3 8 15;
	 2 7 20 11 13;
	 12 19 20 21 43)

B = 	(2 6 30 8 16;
	 3 8 19 11 13)

(the actual matrices have hundreds of thousands of entry, that's why I'm
keen to avoid "for" loops)

And what I need to do is to apply a function which counts the number of
common elements between ANY row of A and ANY row of B, giving a result
like this:


A1 vs B1:  1  # (8 is a common element)
A1 vs B2:  1  # (8 is a common element)
A2 vs B1:  1  # (2 is a common element)
A2 vs B2:  1  # 11, 13 are common elements
Etc.

I've built a function that counts the number of common elements between
two vectors, based on the intersect function in the R manual

common_elements <- function(x,y) length(y[match(x,y,nomatch=0)])

And a double loop who solves my problem would be something like
(pseudo-code)

For(i in 1:N_A){
	for(j in 1:N_B){
		ce(i,j)=common_elements(a(i),b(j))
		}
	} 

Is there an efficient, clean way to do the same job and give as an
output a matrix N_A x N_B such as that above?

Thanks a lot for your help

Regards

Pietro

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