[Numpy-discussion] ascii input/output cookbook doc

[joris at ster.kuleuven.ac.be]

For your information: I just created a small cookbook document
http://scipy.org/Cookbook/InputOutput
where it is explained how one can read and write Numpy arrays in human
readable (ascii) format. 


The document describes how one can use read_array/write_array if SciPy
is installed, or how one can use load/save if Matplotlib is installed.
When neither of these two packages is installed, one basically has no
other choice then to improvise, so I also give here a few examples how
one could do this.

Imho, there is something unsatisfactorily about this need to improvise. 
Ascii input/output of numpy arrays seems to me a very basic need. Even
when one defines Numpy crudely as the N-dimensional array object, and 
Scipy as the science you can do with these array objects, then I would
intuitively still expect that ascii input/output would belong to Numpy
rather than to Scipy. There are Numpy support functions for binary format,
and for pickled format, but strangely enough not really for ascii format.
tofile() and fromfile() do not preserve the shape of a 2d array, and are
in practice therefore hardly usable. 

There may be a signficant fraction of Numpy users that do not need SciPy 
for their work, and have only Numpy installed. My guess is that the 
read_array and write_array functions have already been re-invented many 
many times by these users. Imho, I therefore think that Numpy deserves
its own read_array/write_array method. Does anyone else have this feeling,
or am I the only one? :o)

Joris


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