[Numpy-discussion] Getting a numpy array from a ctype pointer

[Travis E. Oliphant]

Paulo J. S. Silva wrote:
> After some trial and erros, I found a solution, described below. Is this
> the best one? Looks a little convoluted to me (C represents ctypes
> module and np numpy):
>
>         Array = n*C.c_double
>         x = Array.from_address(C.addressof(x.contents))
>         x = np.ctypeslib.as_array(x)
>   

That's a pretty simple approach.   There is a faster approach which uses 
the undocumented function int_asbuffer function from numpy.core.multiarray

(i.e. from numpy.core.multiarray import int_asbuffer)

Then:

x = np.frombuffer(int_asbuffer(C.addressof(x.contents), n*8))

If you don't like the hard-coded '8', then you can get that number from

np.dtype(float).itemsize

There may also be a way to get it from ctypes.


-Travis