[SciPy-dev] Changes in SVN scipy_core

[Francesc Altet]

Travis,

A Dimecres 14 Desembre 2005 23:56, Travis Oliphant va escriure:
> I want to let you all know about the recent changes in the SVN version
> of scipy_core.  As you may recall, I dramatically improved the way the
> data in an array can be understood by improving the PyArray_Descr
> structure and making it an object.  As part of that improvement, it
> became clear that the NOTSWAPPED flag was an anomaly and shouldn't be a
> flag on the array itself.  The byte-order of the data is a property of
> the data-type descriptor.  This is especially clear when considering
> records which according to the array protocol can have some fields in
> one byte order and some in another.

It is not clear to me whether supporting different byte orders in the
same recarray (or plain array) would be necessary. This question arose
some moths ago in the numpy list, and not even Perry Greenfield was 
able to realize an example on situations this would be useful.

My opinion about this is that this feature complicates unnecessarily
the code, potentially making the treatment of non-native byteorder
records more costly. If this is not the case, great, but if it is, I'd
very much prefer to assume that the byteorder of every object in
scipy_core would be the same.

BTW, I've seen in the latest SVN checkout that you are making great
progress in porting the recarray object. I'd like to have the code a
look and try to port our nestedrecarray as well, and offer it for your
consideration. I've seen also that you started a new unit test module
for recarray. That's great! I hope to contribute some tests units for
it as well.

Thanks for your excellent work!

-- 
>0,0<   Francesc Altet     http://www.carabos.com/
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