[Numpy-discussion] recarrays and lists of lists

[Robert Kern]

On Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 00:30, Travis Vaught <travis at vaught.net> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> Is there a particular reason why a list of lists can't be passed in to create a recarray given a particular dtype?
>
> A list of tuples works fine.  I keep getting bitten by this and was thinking it should be an easy check/convert for an allowance for a row to be a list _or_ a tuple?

As a rule, tuples are considered "scalar" records and lists are
recursed upon. This rule helps numpy.array() figure out which
sequences are records and which are other sequences to be recursed
upon; i.e. which sequences create another dimension and which are the
atomic elements. Otherwise, it has to make some guesses and do some
intelligent backtracking. It's not that intelligent.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless
enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as
though it had an underlying truth."
  -- Umberto Eco