[Numpy-discussion] Unexpected behavior with numpy array

[Damian Eads]

Good day,

Reversing a 1-dimensional array in numpy is simple,

    A = A[:,:,-1]     .

However A is a new array referring to the old one and is no longer 
contiguous.

While trying to reverse an array in place and keep it contiguous, I 
encountered some weird behavior. The reason for keeping it contiguous is 
the array must be passed to an old C function I have, which expects the 
buffer to be in row major order and contiguous. I am using lots of 
memory so I want to minimize copying and allocation of new arrays.

 >>> A=numpy.arange(0,10)
 >>> A
array([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9])
 >>> A[::-1]
array([9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0])
 >>> A[:] = A[::-1]
 >>> A
array([9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9])
 >>>

Is there any way to perform assignments of the following form

      X[sliceI] = expression involving X
                  with dimensions that are
                  compatible with the left
                  hand side

without causing the odd behavior I mentioned. If not, it might be 
helpful to throw an exception when both the LHS and the RHS of an 
assignment reference an array slice of the same variable?

On similar note, does the assignment

       A = A * B

create a new array with a new buffer to hold the result of A * B, and 
assign A to refer to the new array?

Thanks very much!

Damian