[Numpy-discussion] Conditional update of recarray field

[Francesc Alted]

On 11/28/12 1:47 PM, Bartosz wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I try to update values in a single field of numpy record array based on
> a condition defined in another array. I found that that the result
> depends on the order in which I apply the boolean indices/field names.
>
> For example:
>
> cond = np.zeros(5, dtype=np.bool)
> cond[2:] = True
> X = np.rec.fromarrays([np.arange(5)], names='a')
> X[cond]['a'] = -1
> print X
>
> returns:  [(0,) (1,) (2,) (3,) (4,)] (the values were not updated)
>
> X['a'][cond] = -1
> print X
>
> returns: [(0,) (1,) (-1,) (-1,) (-1,)] (it worked this time).
>
> I find this behaviour very confusing. Is it expected?

Yes, it is.  In the first idiom, X[cond] is a fancy indexing operation 
and the result is not a view, so what you are doing is basically 
modifying the temporary object that results from the indexing.  In the 
second idiom, X['a'] is returning a *view* of the original object, so 
this is why it works.

>   Would it be
> possible to emit a warning message in the case of "faulty" assignments?

The only solution that I can see for this is that the fancy indexing 
would return a view, and not a different object, but NumPy containers 
are not prepared for this.

-- 
Francesc Alted