[Numpy-discussion] Datarray BoF, part2

[Keith Goodman]

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Bruce Southey <bsouthey at gmail.com> wrote:

> The current implemented option of allowing strings is the only practical
> option and I think that most other related languages also impose this
> constraint. Otherwise we will effectively break compatibility with Python
> and numpy because darr[0] can result in different answers depending on the
> type of object involved - especially if you are using views and forget the
> actual object type.

There are axis labels (currently string only) and there are tick
labels (currently anything but int).

darr[0] will always return the first element of the datarray. No
indexing by tick label is allowed. To index by tick label you'd have
to use a special method like darr.lix[...]. Would that be OK?

> I do think that we do have to avoid adding complexity that increases runtime
> like looking for the label 2 when it should be the second axis. Also we have
> to avoid situations that lead to input errors like flag values or extra
> arguments.

It's nice to make thing general by allowing any hashable object to
label an axis. But I agree with you that we have to watch the cost of
doing so.

Nothing was decided as final at the metting. We only discussed options.