[Numpy-discussion] Numpy Benchmarking (original) (raw)

Robert Kern robert.kern at gmail.com
Wed Jun 28 04:22:28 EDT 2006

joris at ster.kuleuven.ac.be wrote:

Hi,

[TO]: NumPy uses Numeric's old wrapper to lapack algorithms. [TO]: [TO]: SciPy uses it's own f2py-generated wrapper (it doesn't rely on the [TO]: NumPy wrapper). [TO]: [TO]: The numpy.dual library exists so you can use the SciPy calls if the [TO]: person has SciPy installed or the NumPy ones otherwise. It exists [TO]: precisely for the purpose of seamlessly taking advantage of [TO]: algorithms/interfaces that exist in NumPy but are improved in SciPy. This strikes me as a little bit odd. Why not just provide the best-performing function to both SciPy and NumPy? Would NumPy be more difficult to install if the SciPy algorithm for inv() was incorporated?

That's certainly the case for the FFT algorithms. Scipy wraps more (and more complicated) FFT libraries that are faster than FFTPACK.

Most of the linalg functionality should probably be wrapping the same routines if an optimized LAPACK is available. However, changing the routine used in numpy in the absence of an optimized LAPACK would require reconstructing the f2c'ed lapack_lite library that we include with the numpy source. That hasn't been touched in so long that I would hesitate to do so. If you are willing to do the work and the testing to ensure that it still works everywhere, we'd probably accept the change.

-- 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

More information about the NumPy-Discussion mailing list