This is documentation for an old release of NumPy (version 1.12.0). Read this page in the documentation of the latest stable release (version > 1.17).
numpy.ndarray.view¶
- ndarray.view(dtype=None, type=None)¶
New view of array with the same data.
Parameters: dtype : data-type or ndarray sub-class, optional
Data-type descriptor of the returned view, e.g., float32 or int16. The default, None, results in the view having the same data-type as a. This argument can also be specified as an ndarray sub-class, which then specifies the type of the returned object (this is equivalent to setting the type parameter).
type : Python type, optional
Type of the returned view, e.g., ndarray or matrix. Again, the default None results in type preservation.
Notes
a.view() is used two different ways:
a.view(some_dtype) or a.view(dtype=some_dtype) constructs a view of the array’s memory with a different data-type. This can cause a reinterpretation of the bytes of memory.
a.view(ndarray_subclass) or a.view(type=ndarray_subclass) just returns an instance of ndarray_subclass that looks at the same array (same shape, dtype, etc.) This does not cause a reinterpretation of the memory.
For a.view(some_dtype), if some_dtype has a different number of bytes per entry than the previous dtype (for example, converting a regular array to a structured array), then the behavior of the view cannot be predicted just from the superficial appearance of a (shown by print(a)). It also depends on exactly how a is stored in memory. Therefore if a is C-ordered versus fortran-ordered, versus defined as a slice or transpose, etc., the view may give different results.
Examples
>>> x = np.array([(1, 2)], dtype=[('a', np.int8), ('b', np.int8)])
Viewing array data using a different type and dtype:
>>> y = x.view(dtype=np.int16, type=np.matrix) >>> y matrix([[513]], dtype=int16) >>> print(type(y)) <class 'numpy.matrixlib.defmatrix.matrix'>
Creating a view on a structured array so it can be used in calculations
>>> x = np.array([(1, 2),(3,4)], dtype=[('a', np.int8), ('b', np.int8)]) >>> xv = x.view(dtype=np.int8).reshape(-1,2) >>> xv array([[1, 2], [3, 4]], dtype=int8) >>> xv.mean(0) array([ 2., 3.])
Making changes to the view changes the underlying array
>>> xv[0,1] = 20 >>> print(x) [(1, 20) (3, 4)]
Using a view to convert an array to a recarray:
>>> z = x.view(np.recarray) >>> z.a array([1], dtype=int8)
Views share data:
>>> x[0] = (9, 10) >>> z[0] (9, 10)
Views that change the dtype size (bytes per entry) should normally be avoided on arrays defined by slices, transposes, fortran-ordering, etc.:
>>> x = np.array([[1,2,3],[4,5,6]], dtype=np.int16) >>> y = x[:, 0:2] >>> y array([[1, 2], [4, 5]], dtype=int16) >>> y.view(dtype=[('width', np.int16), ('length', np.int16)]) Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> ValueError: new type not compatible with array. >>> z = y.copy() >>> z.view(dtype=[('width', np.int16), ('length', np.int16)]) array([[(1, 2)], [(4, 5)]], dtype=[('width', '<i2'), ('length', '<i2')])