Travis E. Oliphant wrote: > Last year, during development of NumPy, the concept of the array > interface was developed as a means to share array_like data. It was > realized that it is this concept that needs to be explored further and > pushed into Python itself, rather than a particular incarnation of an > array. > > It is very important for many people to get access to memory with some > description of how that memory should be interpreted as an array. > Several Python packages could benefit if Python had some notion of an > array interface that was at least supported in a duck-typing fashion. > > The description of what we've come up with so far and is implemented in > NumPy (and Numarray and last released Numeric) is at > > http://numeric.scipy.org/#array_interface > > Quite a few of us would love to see this get into Python proper, but > have very little free-time to spare to make sure it happens. > > Would it be possible to add at least the C-struct array interface to the > Python arrayobject in time for Python 2.5?
I'm very much for that. > Is someone on this list willing to help make it happen? Unfortunately not me - I'm too busy with ctypes, and if the array interface makes it into the core I will have to implement/use that in ctypes too. Accessing Python arrays (Numeric arrays, Numeric array, or Numpy array) as ctypes arrays, and vice versa, without copying any memory, would be a good thing. > In NumPy, there is also a reasonably good way to describe the > "data-type" of arbitrary data, that fell out of the discussions over the > array interface. I think something like this could eventually find its > way into Python as well. > > We would love any feedback from the Python community on the array > interface. Especially because we'd like to see it in Python itself and > supported and used by every relevant Python package sooner rather than > later. Thomas _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com