[Numpy-discussion] Array interface updated to Version 3 (original) (raw)

Andrew Straw strawman at astraw.com
Fri Jun 16 21:10:49 EDT 2006

I noticed in your note labeled 'June 16, 2006' that you refer to the "desc" field. However, in the struct description above, there is only a field named "descr".

Also, I suggest that you update the information in the comments of descr field of the structure description to contain the fact that inter.descr is a reference to a tuple equal to ("PyArrayInterface Version #",new_tuple_with_array_interface). What is currently there seems out of date given the new information. Finally, in the comment section describing this field, I strongly suggesting noting that this field is only present if and only if the ARR_HAS_DESCR flag is present. It will be more clear if it's there rather than in the text underneath.

Is the "#" in the string meant to be replaced with "3"? If so, why not write 3? Also, in your note, you should explain whether "dummy" (renamed from "version") should still be checked as a sanity check or whether it should now be ignored. I think we could call the field "two" and keep the sanity check for backwards compatibility. I agree it is confusing to have two different version numbers in the same struct, so I don't mind having the official name of the field being something other than "version", but if we keep it as a required sanity check (in which case it probably shouldn't be named "dummy"), the whole thing will remain backwards compatible with all current code.

Anyhow, I'm very excited about this array interface, and I await the outcome of the Summer of Code project on the 'micro-array' implementation based on it!

Cheers! Andrew

Travis Oliphant wrote:

I just updated the array interface page to emphasize we now have version 3. NumPy still supports objects that expose (the C-side) of version 2 of the array interface, though.

The new interface is basically the same except (mostly) for asthetics: The differences are listed at the bottom of http://numeric.scipy.org/arrayinterface.html There is talk of ctypes supporting the new interface which is a worthy development. Please encourage that if you can. Please voice concerns now if you have any. -Travis

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