[Numpy-discussion] Slices of structured arrays

[Robert Ferrell]

Is there a way to get slices of a structured array and keep the field  
names?  For instance, I've got dtype=[('x','f4'),('y','f4'), 
('z','f4')] and I want to get just the x & y slices into a new array  
with dtype=[('x','f4'),('y','f4')].

I can just make a new dtype, and extract what I need, but I'm  
wondering if there's some simple way to do this that I haven't found.

Here's what I know works:

# Make a len 10 array with 3 fields, 'x', 'y', 'z'
In [647]: xyz = np.array(zip(*np.random.random_integers(low=10,  
size=(3,10))), dtype=[('x', 'f4'), ('y', 'f4'), ('z', 'f4')])

# Get just the 'x' and 'y' fields
In [648]: xy = np.array( zip(xyz['x'], xyz['y'] ), dtype=[('x','f4'),  
('y', 'f4')])

In [649]: xyz['x']
Out[649]: array([ 4.,  1.,  1.,  5.,  1.,  2.,  9.,  8.,  1.,  9.],  
dtype=float32)

In [650]: xy['x']
Out[650]: array([ 4.,  1.,  1.,  5.,  1.,  2.,  9.,  8.,  1.,  9.],  
dtype=float32)

That works, but just feels like there's probably an elegant solution I  
don't know.  I couldn't find anything in the docs, but I may not have  
been using the right search words.

thanks,
-robert