Howdy, It seems it's possible using e.g. In [25]: dtype([('foo', str)])Out[25]: dtype([('foo', '|S0')]) to get yourself a zero-length string. However dtype('|S0') results in a TypeError: data type not understood. I understand the stupidity of creating a 0-length string field but it's conceivable that it's accidental. For example, it could lead to a situation where you've created that field, are missing all the data you had meant to put in it, serialize with np.save, and upon np.load aren't able to get _any_ of your data back because the dtype descriptor is considered bogus (can you guess why I thought of this scenario?). It seems that either dtype(str) should do something more sensible than zero-length string, or it should be possible to create it with dtype('| S0'). Which should it be? David