Release Notes for numarray-0.7 Numarray is an array processing package designed to efficiently manipulate large multi-dimensional arrays. Numarray is modelled after Numeric and features c-code generated from python template scripts, the capacity to operate directly on arrays in files, and improved type promotions. I. ENHANCEMENTS 1. Object Arrays numarray now has an object array facility. numarray.objects provides array indexing and ufuncs for fixed length collections of arbitrary Python objects. 2. Merger of NumArray/ComplexArray classes Numarray's NumArray and ComplexArray classes have been unified into a single class. Thus, a single base class can be used to derive array classes which operate on integer, real or complex numbers. Thanks to Colin Williams for this suggestion. 3. Indexing improvements The implementation of numarray's indexing has been simplified and improved. Ad-hoc logic for getting single array elements fast has been replaced by a full conversion to C of the top level of numarray's Python indexing code. The resulting code is simpler, prototyped in Python, and adds an additional kind of indexing which occurs entirely in C for speed: sub-arrays. Slicing and array indexing, however, still involve significant amounts of Python code. 4. IEEE Special Value Constants Standard constants for nan, plus_inf, minus_inf, and inf have been added to numarray.ieeespecial making it easier to assign IEEE special values to arrays in addition to finding or replacing special values. 5. Better Numeric interoperability (wxPyPlot port) numarray-0.7 addresses a couple compatibility and speed issues which hindered numarray's use with wxPyPlot. numarray now works fine with the wxPyPlot demos by changing "import Numeric" to "import numarray as Numeric". II. BUGS FIXED See http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=450446&group_id=1369&func=browse for more details. 793421 PyArray_INCREF / PyArray_XDECREF deprecated 791354 Integer overflow bugs? 785458 Crash subclassing the NumArray class 784866 astype() fails sometimes 779755 Mac OS 10 installation problem 740035 Possible problem with dot III. CAUTIONS 1. numarray extension writers should note that the documented use of PyArray_INCREF and PyArray_XDECREF (in numarray) has been found to be incompatible with Numeric and has therefore been deprecated. numarray wrapper functions using PyArray_INCREF and PyArray_XDECREF should switch to ordinary Py_INCREF and Py_XDECREF. 2. Writers of numarray subclasses should note that the "protected" _getitem/_setitem interface for NDArray has changed. WHERE ----------- Numarray-0.7 windows executable installers, source code, and manual is here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1369 Numarray is hosted by Source Forge in the same project which hosts Numeric: http://sourceforge.net/projects/numpy/ The web page for Numarray information is at: http://stsdas.stsci.edu/numarray/index.html Trackers for Numarray Bugs, Feature Requests, Support, and Patches are at the Source Forge project for NumPy at: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=1369 REQUIREMENTS ------------------------------ numarray-0.7 requires Python 2.2.2 or greater. AUTHORS, LICENSE ------------------------------ Numarray was written by Perry Greenfield, Rick White, Todd Miller, JC Hsu, Paul Barrett, Phil Hodge at the Space Telescope Science Institute. Thanks go to Jochen Kupper of the University of North Carolina for his work on Numarray and for porting the Numarray manual to TeX format. Thanks also to Edward C. Jones, Francesc Alted, Paul Dubois, Eric Jones, Travis Oliphant, Pearu Peterson, Colin Williams, and everyone who has contributed with comments and feedback. Numarray is made available under a BSD-style License. See LICENSE.txt in the source distribution for details. -- Todd Miller jmiller@stsci.edu