Getting started with Scipy/NumPy

[tkpmep at hotmail.com]

I installed SciPy and NumPy (0.9.5, because 0.9.6 does not work with
the current version of SciPy), and had some teething troubles. I looked
around for help and observed that the tutorial is dated October 2004,
and is not as thorough as Python's documentation. Is there an
alternative source of information that lists all the functions and
their usage?

I tried using scipy.info to get information on the std function in the
stats libary, and ran into the following problem.


>>> x = [1, 2, 3, 4]
>>> import scipy
>>> scipy.std(x)
1.2909944487358056

>>> scipy.info(std)

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#6>", line 1, in -toplevel-
    scipy.info(std)
NameError: name 'std' is not defined

>>> scipy.info(stats)

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#7>", line 1, in -toplevel-
    scipy.info(stats)
NameError: name 'stats' is not defined

>>> scipy.info(stats.std)

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#11>", line 1, in -toplevel-
    scipy.info(stats.std)
NameError: name 'stats' is not defined



However, If I redo the import as follows I can get help on std:
>>> from scipy import *
>>> info(std)
 std(a, axis=0, dtype=None)

None
>>>

Question: why did it work this time and not on my first attempt?

Thanks in advance

Thomas Philips