[Cython] buffer syntax vs. memory view syntax

[mark florisson]

On 7 May 2012 17:00, Dag Sverre Seljebotn <d.s.seljebotn at astro.uio.no> wrote:
> On 05/07/2012 04:16 PM, Stefan Behnel wrote:
>>
>> Stefan Behnel, 07.05.2012 15:04:
>>>
>>> Dag Sverre Seljebotn, 07.05.2012 13:48:
>>>>
>>>> BTW, with the coming of memoryviews, me and Mark talked about just
>>>> deprecating the "mytype[...]" meaning buffers, and rather treat it as
>>>> np.ndarray, array.array etc. being some sort of "template types". That
>>>> is,
>>>> we disallow "object[int]" and require some special declarations in the
>>>> relevant pxd files.
>>>
>>>
>>> Hmm, yes, it's unfortunate that we have two different types of syntax
>>> now,
>>> one that declares the item type before the brackets and one that declares
>>> it afterwards.
>>
>>
>> I actually think this merits some more discussion. Should we consider the
>> buffer interface syntax deprecated and focus on the memory view syntax?
>
>
> I think that's the very-long-term intention. Then again, it may be too early
> to really tell yet, we just need to see how the memory views play out in
> real life and whether they'll be able to replace np.ndarray[double] among
> real users. We don't want to shove things down users throats.
>
> But the use of the trailing-[] syntax needs some cleaning up. Me and Mark
> agreed we'd put this proposal forward when we got around to it:
>
>  - Deprecate the "object[double]" form, where [dtype] can be stuck on any
> extension type
>
>  - But, do NOT (for the next year at least) deprecate np.ndarray[double],
> array.array[double], etc. Basically, there should be a magic flag in
> extension type declarations saying "I can be a buffer".
>
> For one thing, that is sort of needed to open up things for templated cdef
> classes/fused types cdef classes, if that is ever implemented.

Deprecating is definitely a good start. I think at least if you only
allow two types as buffers it will be at least reasonably clear when
one is dealing with fused types or buffers.

Basically, I think memoryviews should live up to demands of the users,
which would mean there would be no reason to keep the buffer syntax.
One thing to do is make memoryviews coerce cheaply back to the
original objects if wanted (which is likely). Writting
np.asarray(mymemview) is kind of annoying.

Also, OT (sorry), but I'm kind of worried about the memoryview ABI. If
it changes (and I intend to do so), cython modules compiled with
different cython versions will become incompatible if they call each
other through pxds. Maybe that should be defined as UB...

> The semantic meaning of trailing [] is still sort of like the C++ meaning;
> that it templates the argument types (except it's lots of special cases in
> the compiler for various things rather than a Turing-complete template
> language...)
>
> Dag
>
>>
>> The words-to-punctuation ratio of the latter may hurt the eyes when
>> encountering it unprepared, but at least it doesn't require two type
>> names,
>> of which the one before the brackets (i.e. "object") is mostly useless.
>> (Although it does reflect the notion that we are dealing with an object
>> here ...)
>>
>> Stefan
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>
>
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