[Edu-sig] Truth values and comparisons

[Arthur]

Looking for a little education on edu-sig.

On one hand I am feeling like a big boy, having announced today on the 
vpython list that I think I have adequately accomplished the necessary 
fixes to the vpython C++ code to accomplish compatibility with the newly 
released numpy 1.0, and in a way that I think in the end (it was a 
round-about process for me)  is straightforward and unlikely to 
introduce bugs into the existing stable codebase.

OTOH, I am learning there is some very basic Python I do not understand.

Now having a vpython that runs against numpy, I am learning about some 
of the changes in the numpy Python API versus that of Numeric and 
numarray. One basic incompatibility is in that the older libraries did 
something to give a result in comparing 2 arrays that numpy backs away 
from - complaining about ambiguity.

For example, in the vpython faces_heightfield.py demo there is a line:

 >>>normal[i] = vertex_map[tp] and norm( vertex_map[ tp ] )

which ran fine under Numeric and numarray, and now fails with a message:

"""
The truth value of an array with more than one element is ambiguous.
Use a.any() or a.all()
"""

For the purposes of the exercise assume that both "vertex_map[tp]" and 
"norm( vertex_map[ tp ]"
each return one dimensional, 3 element numpy arrays. Not exactly true, 
but I think the result would be the same if it were.

In the original code, what is the "and" doing, and in what way might the 
"any" or "all" built-ins be used to get the result intended by it?


Art