[Numpy-discussion] untenable matrix behavior in SVN

[Keith Goodman]

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 11:46 AM, Keith Goodman <kwgoodman at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 11:21 AM, Alan G Isaac <aisaac at american.edu> wrote:
>  > On Tue, 29 Apr 2008, Keith Goodman apparently wrote:
>  >  > I often use x[i,:] and x[:,i] where x is a matrix and i is
>  >  > a scalar. I hope this continues to return a matrix.
>  >
>  >  1. Could you give an example of the circumstances of this
>  >  use?
>
>  In my use i is most commonly an array (i = M.where(y.A)[0] where y is
>  a nx1 matrix), sometimes a list, and in ipython when debugging or
>  first writing the code, a scalar. It would seem odd to me if x[i,:]
>  returned different types of objects based on the type of i:
>
>  array index
>  idx = M.where(y.A)[0] where y is a nx1 matrix
>  x[dx,:] -->  matrix
>
>  list index
>  idx = [0]
>  x[idx,:] --> matrix?
>
>  scalar index
>  idx = 0
>  x[idx,:] --> not matrix

Here's another use case:

    for i in xrange(x.shape[1]):
        xi = x[:,i]
        idx = M.where(M.isfinite(xi).A)[0]
        xi = xi[idx,:]
        # more code

Also the functions I have written work on matrices. If x[i,:] did not
return a matrix, let's say it returned some other vector type object
that you index with a scalar, then my functions will have to test
whether the input is a full matrix or a vector since the indexing is
different.