[Numpy-discussion] BOF notes: Fernando's proposal: NumPy ndarray with named axes

Lluís xscript at gmx.net
Thu Jul 8 16:15:23 EDT 2010


Rob Speer writes:

>> No. I'd rather go for eliminating the 'arr.year.named', and providing only:
>>  * arr.__getitem__
>>  * arr.named.__getitem__
>>  * arr.<label>.__getitem__
>> 
>> The first being just the current ndarray.__getitem__, and the two last methods
>> would accept both strings and integers, assuming that names/ticks based on
>> integers (e.g., the 1994 above) must be provided as strings, or otherwise are
>> treated as good old array indexes.

> There are lots of data types besides strings that make good names
> (tuples, for example).

I think strings are the most common, but you can still use anything you like as
long as it's hashable but not an integer.


> My impression from SciPy was that people would prefer separate
> accessors for names and indices, especially because integers (a really
> common data type, after all) shouldn't be forbidden. Also, working
> with strings of integers like '2010' makes me feel like I'm using PHP,
> a feeling I like to avoid whenever possible. :)

This boils down to one single question: must it be allowed to index with a mix
of names (whatever their type) _and_ "good-old" integer indexes that are not
"translated"?

Lluis

-- 
 "And it's much the same thing with knowledge, for whenever you learn
 something new, the whole world becomes that much richer."
 -- The Princess of Pure Reason, as told by Norton Juster in The Phantom
 Tollbooth



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