[Numpy-discussion] using loadtxt to load a text file in to a numpy array

[Chris Barker]

On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 11:18 AM, <josef.pktd at gmail.com> wrote:


> I think this is just inconsistent casting rules in numpy,
>
> numpy should either refuse to assign the wrong type, instead of using
> the repr as in some of the earlier examples of Oscar
>
> >>> s = np.inf
> >>> np.array((s,), dtype=int)[0] == s
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<pyshell#126>", line 1, in <module>
>     np.array((s,), dtype=int)[0] == s
> OverflowError: cannot convert float infinity to integer
>
> or use the **same** conversion/casting rules also during the
> interaction with python as are used in assignments and array creation.
>

Exactly -- but what should those conversion/casting rules be? We can't
decide that unless we decide if 'S' is for text or for arbitrary bytes --
it can't be both. I say text, that's what it's mostly trying to do already.
But if it's bytes, fine, then some things still need cleaning up, and we
could really use a one-byte-text type.  and if it's text, then we may need
a bytes dtype.

Key here is that we don't  have the option of not breaking anything,
because there is a lot already broken.

-Chris


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Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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