[Numpy-discussion] apply_along, apply_over w/ subarrays

[Pierre GM]

Folks,
Is there any reason why `apply_along_axis`, `apply_over_axes` (and I expect 
`vectorize` as well, but I haven't tried) won't accept subclasses of 
ndarrays ?
Would it be possible to use `asanyarray` instead of `asarray` in those 
functions ?

Oh, and I ran into some problems with apply_along-axis: in the uncommon case 
where the output of the 1d functions is a scalar array (eg., N.array(0)) (or 
a masked_singleton), the current version raises a TypeError, as the output is 
not a scalar, but doesn't have a length either. I tried to correct that, but 
I'd prefer to get some feedback before submitting the patch.

Thanks for all.
P.

#################################################
--- numpy/lib/shape_base.py.init	2006-11-26 13:22:57.000000000 -0500
+++ numpy/lib/shape_base.py	2006-11-26 17:01:22.000000000 -0500
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ def apply_along_axis(func1d,axis,arr,*ar
         and arr is an N-d array.  i varies so as to apply the function
         along the given axis for each 1-d subarray in arr.
     """
-    arr = asarray(arr)
+    arr = asanyarray(arr)
     nd = arr.ndim
     if axis < 0:
         axis += nd
@@ -28,9 +28,16 @@ def apply_along_axis(func1d,axis,arr,*ar
     outshape = asarray(arr.shape).take(indlist)
     i.put(indlist, ind)
     res = func1d(arr[tuple(i.tolist())],*args)
-    #  if res is a number, then we have a smaller output array
-    if isscalar(res):
-        outarr = zeros(outshape,asarray(res).dtype)
+    #  if res is a number, or doesn't have a length , then we have a smaller 
output array
+    asscalar = isscalar(res)
+    if not asscalar:
+        try:
+            len(res)
+        except TypeError:
+            asscalar = True
+    #
+    if asscalar:
+        outarr = zeros(outshape,asarray(res).dtype).view(res.__class__)
         outarr[ind] = res
         Ntot = product(outshape)
         k = 1
@@ -52,7 +59,7 @@ def apply_along_axis(func1d,axis,arr,*ar
         holdshape = outshape
         outshape = list(arr.shape)
         outshape[axis] = len(res)
-        outarr = zeros(outshape,asarray(res).dtype)
+        outarr = zeros(outshape,asarray(res).dtype).view(res.__class__)
         outarr[tuple(i.tolist())] = res
         k = 1
         while k < Ntot:
@@ -78,7 +85,7 @@ def apply_over_axes(func, a, axes):
     to be either the same shape as a or have one less dimension.
     This call is repeated for each axis in the axes sequence.
     """
-    val = asarray(a)
+    val = asanyarray(a)
     N = a.ndim
     if array(axes).ndim == 0:
         axes = (axes,)
#################################################