[SciPy-user] npfile deprecated?

[Steve Schmerler]

Hi all

Since I'm currently in the need to store and read binary data a lot,
I choose npfile. Since [1] didn't mention it, I attempted to
update the doc here. I added scipy.io.npfile, numpy.load, numpy.save
and numpy.savez.  At work, I still use 0.6.0.  However, I found that in
the current svn HEAD, the scipy.io.npfile docstring says that it is
deprecated and I should use ndarray.tofile() and numpy.fromfile()
instead. But with the latter, I can't control byteorder, row- or
column-major order etc. That's a bit puzzling.   

I admitt that I haven't followed the development of the new numpy file
format very closely (since npfile worked nicely so far).  So, is the
.npy/.npz way the current standard to store platform-independent binary
arrays with all metainfo? 

[1] http://scipy.org/Cookbook/InputOutput

best,
steve