[Numpy-discussion] Fixing PyArray_Descr flags member size, ABI vs pickling issue

[David Cournapeau]

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 1:25 PM, Travis Oliphant <travis at continuum.io> wrote:
> Why do we want to return a single string char instead of an int?
>
> There is a need for more flags on the dtype object.   Using an actual attribute call seems like the way to go.  This could even merge the contents of two struct members so that we can add more flags but preserve ABI compatibility.

Yes. The T_BYTE/T_INT is actually pretty  minor compared to the
underlying issue (where we cast back and forth between int and char).
I will make a new PR that fixes everything but this exact point, and
will put an actual accessor if needed. Given that dtype.flags is
nonsensical as of today (at the python level), I would expect nobody
uses it.

cheers,

David