[Numpy-discussion] numpy.linalg prevents use of scipy.linalg?

[Zachary Pincus]

Hi folks,

I can't seem to use any of the functions in scipy.linalg because  
numpy defines its own linalg which shadows that of scipy!

Specifically, scipy.linalg defines 'norm' (in linalg/basic.py), and  
numpy doesn't. (This among other differences, I assume.)

In [1]: import scipy
In [2]: scipy.linalg.norm
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'norm'
In [3]: scipy.linalg.__file__
Out[3]: '[...]/python2.4/site-packages/numpy/linalg/__init__.pyc'
                                       ^^^^^^^
Now, look what happens when we import scipy.linalg directly:

In [1]: import scipy.linalg
In [2]: scipy.linalg.norm
Out[2]: <function norm at 0x14261f0>
In [3]: scipy.linalg.__file__
Out[3]: '[...]/python2.4/site-packages/scipy/linalg/__init__.pyc'
                                       ^^^^^^^
Something needs to be done to fix this -- but what? Scipy  
historically imports * from numpy. Scipy historically has a linalg  
module. The new thing is that numpy has a linalg module, too, which  
is loaded by default into the numpy namespace. (Compared to Numeric's  
LinearAlgebra module.)

The only thing I can think of is to fold all of scipy.linalg into  
numpy.linalg, and remove the former. This provides for backwards  
compatibility for everyone, but perhaps a bit of work.


Zach