[Numpy-discussion] bug? in len(arr.flat)

[Todd Miller]

On Wed, 2004-10-27 at 12:58, Sebastian Haase wrote:
> Hi,
> I have a (UInt16) 3d data stack and want to get to it's underlying buffer (to 
> (later) feed it into memmap) ...  
> I noticed that len(pr2._flat) is half of len(pr2._data) - like it doesn't 
> multiply itemsize in.
> >>> pr2.shape
> (40, 512, 512)
> >>> pr2.flat.shape
> (10485760)
> >>> 512*512*40
> 10485760
> >>> len(pr2.flat)
> 10485760
> >>> pr2.flat._itemsize
> 2
> >>> len(pr2._data)
> 20971520
> >>> pr2._byteoffset
> 0
> 
> Is this a bug 

No.

> or am I missunderstanding ?

Yes.  _data is "an object which supports the buffer protocol".  In this
context,  it is effectively a string and thus the product of the total
number of elements and the itemsize.  (We'll ignore for now the fact
that not every array uses the entire buffer.)  In contrast, shape(.flat)
is only the total number of elements and is independent of itemsize.

Regards,
Todd