[Numpy-discussion] SWIGed function does not like my boolean array

[Timothy Hochberg]

On Nov 8, 2007 3:28 AM, Sebastian Haase <haase at msg.ucsf.edu> wrote:

> On Nov 7, 2007 6:46 PM, Timothy Hochberg <tim.hochberg at ieee.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Nov 7, 2007 10:35 AM, Sebastian Haase <haase at msg.ucsf.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Nov 7, 2007 5:23 PM, Matthieu Brucher <matthieu.brucher at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > I don't understand.  I'm thinking of most math functions in the
> > > > > C-library. In C a boolean is just an integer of 0 or 1 (quasi, by
> > > > > definition).
> > > > >
> > > > > Could you explain what you mean ?
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > In C++, bool is a new type that has two values, true and false. If
> you
> > add
> > > > true and true, it is still true, and not 2. In C, everything that is
> not
> > 0
> > > > is true, not in C++.
> > >
> > > Yes, I know this. But my situation is "the other way around". Lets say
> > > I want to count "foreground pixels" in an image: I would want to "sum"
> > > all the true values, i.e. a true *is* a 1 and a false *is* a 0.
> > >
> > > In other words, I'm really thinking of (older kind of) C, where there
> > > *was* no bool.
> > > I assume this thinking still applies to the internal arithmetic of
> CPUs
> > today.
> > > Also the "bit-values" of a boolean array (in memory) are set this way
> > > already anyway !
> > >
> > > How can I simply call my functions looking at these bit values ?
> > > (essentially interpreting a boolean true as 1 and false as 0)
> >
> > I'm not sure how well this would work, but could you change the dtype
> before
> > passing the array to your function? If you wanted a copy, you could just
> to
> > the equivalent of a.astype(unit8). However, if you didn't want a copy,
> you
> > could set the dtype to unit8, operate on the array and then reset it to
> > bool:
> > >>> a = np.array([True, True, False, True])
> > >>> a
> > array([ True,  True, False,  True], dtype=bool)
> > >>> a.dtype = np.uint8
> > >>> a
> > array([1, 1, 0, 1], dtype=uint8)
> > >>> # do something with 'a' here
> > >>> a.dtype = bool
> > >>> a
> > array([ True,  True, False,  True], dtype=bool)
> > This assumes everything is single threaded. If you have multiple threads
> > accessing 'a', this could be a problem... And, you probably want to do
> this
> > in C, so translate as appropriate.
> >
> > -tim
> >
> Thanks Tim, this sound like a good idea.  How about creating an
> a = a.view()
> before changing dtype.


Yeah. That's a better idea. You should be able to just use "a.view(np.uint8
)".


> This should make the proposed solution thread safe again.
> How "expensive" is the creation of a view (performance wise, e.g.
> compared to calling a trivial C-function) ?


It should be pretty cheap in theory, but I have no idea really.

-- 
.  __
.   |-\
.
.  tim.hochberg at ieee.org
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