[Numpy-discussion] object members

[Travis Oliphant]

Martin Wiechert wrote:

>Hi developers,
>
>any plans on when object members will be back?
>  
>
Probably not for a while unless somebody wants to tackle the issues that 
are present.

>My C code still produces dtypes with object members. Can I safely use them, as 
>long as I make sure new arrays are properly initialised?
>  
>
You can only safely use dtypes that are a single OBJECT array.  If a 
record data-type has object members, it is not accounted for in all of 
the code that special-checks for object arrays.  Basically, all of that 
code would need to be adjusted to deal with has-object (i.e. void arrays 
that have a part of their memory layout that is an object). 

The issue is that reference counts need to be handled correctly for that 
portion of the data-record.  This was not considered as the code was 
written, so it would involve a bit of work to get right.

It absolutely could be done, but it's not on my priority list and my 
time for working on NumPy has dwindled. 

-Travis