[Numpy-discussion] real and imag functions should produce errors for object arrays

[Pauli Virtanen]

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:28:08 -0500, Robert Kern wrote:
[clip]
>> *that* == return a complex number from .real
> 
> What is the alternative? I'm personally happy with saying that many of
> the operations we define on numpy arrays can be done because we know the
> types and that object arrays subvert this. numpy can't, without
> excessive amounts of magic, always know a sensible thing to do with
> object arrays, so we implement the fast thing to do.

As I see it, the alternatives are 

1) Not to define .real and .imag for object arrays

2) Define them as elementwise .real and .imag

I don't clearly see the reason for

>>> x.real is x
True
>>> x.imag
array([0], dtype=object)

But it is a minor corner case, and there may be backward compatibility 
issues in changing it.

-- 
Pauli Virtanen