[Tutor] How to use Numeric / where's the documentation?

[Danny Yoo]

[forwarding back to tutor]

On Thu, 31 Oct 2002, Alex Gillis wrote:

> > Yes, thankyou very much, hopefully one day I'll be able to answer
> > other people's questions and repay the tutor list.

No problem!

If you see a question that you'd like to comment on or answer, just charge
ahead; there's no certification required.  *grin*


> Where do you find out info like this, I can look in the libraries to
> find what functions are available and a short description of what they
> do.

The "Numeric" module is an outside extension of Python, so its
documentation isn't known by IDLE, nor by the standard library
documentation at:

    http://python.org/doc/lib


However, there's good news: the Numeric Python page itself has a pretty
good tutorial that you can browse through.  Here it is:

    http://www.pfdubois.com/numpy/html2/numpy.html

There's also some built in help() that we can use in a snap; it's a little
sparse, but if we're trying to remember what parameter a function takes
in, the help() function is often useful.  For example, try out:

###
>>> help(Numeric.zeros)
###

at the interactive prompt, and you should get some sligthly useful
information from it.  Another good one is:

###
>>> help(Numeric)
###

which gives an overview of the functions you can play with in Numeric
Python.


Numeric Python is meant to give Python some specialized matrix-handling
features, similar to those of the Matlab programming language, so it may
feel a little different from standard Python programming.  Give it some
time; there's just a few main functions and concepts in Numeric, and you
should do fine.

Also, if documentation isn't enough, you're always welcome to ask
questions on the Tutor list; we'll be happy to listen to your questions.


I hope this helps answer some of your questions.  Good luck!