[Numpy-discussion] Properties of fields in numpy

[Travis Oliphant]

Francesc Altet wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I don't specially like the 'void*' typecasting that are receiving the
>types in fields in situations like:
>
>In [143]:dtype = numpy.dtype([
>   .....:    ('x', '<i4', (2,)),
>   .....:    ('Info',[
>   .....:        ('name', '<U120'),
>   .....:        ('weight', '<f4')])])
>
>In [147]:dtype.fields['x'][0].name
>Out[147]:'void64'
>
>were you can see that we have lost the information about the native type
>of the 'x' field. Rather, I'd expect something like:
>  
>
In SVN of numpy, the dtype objects now have a .base attribute and a 
.shape attribute.

The .shape attribute returns (1,)  or the shape of the sub-array.

The .base attribute returns the data-type object of the base-type, or a 
new reference to self, if the object has no base.type.

Thus, in current SVN

dtype['x'].base.name  would always give you what you want.

-Travis