Looping over matrix elements more efficiently in Matlab - matlab

Question

I am writing some matlab code and have written an algorithm that works but I don't think its particularly efficient. Since I am trying to improve my programming skills I would like to know if there is a more efficient way of doing this.
I have a (reasonably large ~ E07) matrix of values which are unordered, but fall within the range [-100, 100]. I want to create a second matrix based on the first, by using the following rules:
If the value of the point is > 70, then the value of the point should be set to 70.
If the value of the point is < -70, then the value of the point should be set to -70.
All other values should be rounded to the nearest multiple of 5.
Here is what I am currently doing:
data = 100*(-1+2*rand(1,10000000)); % create random dataset for stackoverflow
new_data = zeros(1,length(data));
for i = 1:length(data)
if (data(i) > 70)
new_data(i) = 70;
elseif (data(i) < -70)
new_data(i) = -70;
else
new_data(i) = round(data(i)/5.0)*5.0;
end
end
Is there a more efficient method? I think there should be a way to do this using logical indexes but those are a new discovery for me...

Answer 1

You do not need a loop at all:
data = 100*(-1+2*rand(1,10000000)); % create random dataset for stackoverflow
new_data = zeros(1,length(data)); % note that this memory allocation is not necessary at this point
new_data = round(data/5.0)*5.0;
new_data(data>70) = 70;
new_data(data<-70) = -70;

Answer 2

Even easier is to use max and min. Do it in one simple line.
new_data = round(5*max(-70,min(70,data)))/5;

Answer 3

The two answers by H.Muster and woodchips are of course the way to do it, but there still are small improvements to be found. If you are after performance you might want to exploit specifics of your problem. For example, your output data is integers -100 <= x <= 100. This obviously qualifies for 8-bit signed integer data type. This code (note explicit cast to int8 from arbitrary double precision data)
% your double precision input data
data = 100*(-1+2*rand(1,10000000));
% cast to int8 - matlab does usual round here
data = int8(data);
new_data = 5*(max(-70,min(70,data))/5);
is the fastest for two reasons:
1 data element takes 1 byte, not 8. Memory bandwidth is a limiting factor here, so you get a lot of improvement
round is no longer necessary
Here are some timings from the codes of H.Muster, woodchips, and my small modification:
H.Muster Elapsed time is 0.235885 seconds.
woodchips Elapsed time is 0.167659 seconds.
my code Elapsed time is 0.023061 seconds.
The difference is quite striking. Although MATLAB uses doubles everywhere, you should try to use integer data types when possible..
Edit This works because of how matlab implements integer arithmetic. Differently than in C, a cast of double to int implies a round operation:
a = 0.1;
int8(a)
ans =
0
a = 0.9;
int8(a)
ans =
1