[Numpy-discussion] Record arrays

[Christopher Hanley]

Travis E. Oliphant wrote:
> Stéfan van der Walt wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I am documenting `recarray`, and have a question:
>>
>> Is its use still recommended, or has it been superseded by fancy data-types?
>>   
> I rarely recommend it's use (but some people do like attribute access to 
> the fields).    It is wrong, however, to say that recarray has been 
> superseded by fancy data types because fancy data types have existed for 
> as long as recarrays. 
> 
> I believe pyfits uses them quite a bit, and so they deserve to be 
> documented.
> 
> -Travis
> 
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Travis is correct.  PyFITS uses recarrays quite extensively.  It was the 
large, legacy numarray project I was referring too. ;-)

I had forgotten about the attribute access.  I know a number of people 
who use that feature in conjunction with matplotlib for plotting data in 
tables, especially during interactive use.

Chris


-- 
Christopher Hanley
Systems Software Engineer
Space Telescope Science Institute
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