[Numpy-discussion] sparse array data

[Stéfan van der Walt]

On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 6:25 PM, Travis Oliphant <travis at continuum.io> wrote:
> The only new principle (which is not strictly new --- but new to NumPy's world-view) is using one (or more) fields of a structured array as "synthetic dimensions" which replace 1 or more of the raw table dimensions.

Ah, thanks--that's the detail I was missing.  I wonder if the
contiguity requirement will hamper us here, though.  E.g., I could
imagine that some tree structure might be more suitable to storing and
organizing indices, and for large arrays we wouldn't like to make a
copy for each operation.  I guess we can't wait for discontiguous
arrays to come along, though :)

> More to come....  If you are interested in this sort of thing please let me know....

Definitely--if we can optimize this machinery it will be beneficial to
scipy.sparse as well.

Stéfan