[Numpy-discussion] how to find out element size of flexible dtype

[Koert Kuipers]

Hello all,
If my function receives an array with a flexible dtype such as string or unicode, how do I find out what the size (max number of elements, not number of bytes) of the datatype is?

For example:
>>> x = np.array(['a', 'b', 'cd'], (np.unicode_, 4))
>>> x.dtype
dtype('<U4')

The string representation of x.dtype shows that is has element size 4, so I could get the element size by parsing that, but is there a more elegant way to get this?
Thanks,
Koert

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