[PYTHON MATRIX-SIG] A problem with slicing

[Hinsen Konrad]

   My initial idea for higher-dimensional arrays was to use a matrix of  
   booleans that was the size of the entire higher-d array being indexed, this  
   fits naturally with the outputs from matrix comparision operators.  ie.

   a = [[1,2,3], [4,5,6]]
   --> a.gt(2) == [[0,0,1], [1,1,1]]
   a[a.gt(2)] = 99
   --> a == [[1,2,99], [99,99,99]]

That's nice on the left hand side of an assignment, but what is the value
of a[a.gt(2)] in an expression? It can't be an array!

If all you want is some form of selective assignment, that can be done
with mapping, although you have to type a bit more. You could also
achieve the above result (admittedly less efficiently) with
a = (not a > 2)*a + (a > 2)*99. Therefore I am not so sure whether
your proposed feature is that important, except if it were very
common.

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Konrad Hinsen                     | E-Mail: hinsenk@ere.umontreal.ca
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