Array programming with NumPy

Abstract

Array programming provides a powerful, compact and expressive syntax for accessing, manipulating and operating on data in vectors, matrices and higher-dimensional arrays. NumPy is the primary array programming library for the Python language. It has an essential role in research analysis pipelines in fields as diverse as physics, chemistry, astronomy, geoscience, biology, psychology, materials science, engineering, finance and economics. For example, in astronomy, NumPy was an important part of the software stack used in the discovery of gravitational waves1 and in the first imaging of a black hole2. Here we review how a few fundamental array concepts lead to a simple and powerful programming paradigm for organizing, exploring and analysing scientific data. NumPy is the foundation upon which the scientific Python ecosystem is constructed. It is so pervasive that several projects, targeting audiences with specialized needs, have developed their own NumPy-like interfaces and array objects. Owing to its central position in the ecosystem, NumPy increasingly acts as an interoperability layer between such array computation libraries and, together with its application programming interface (API), provides a flexible framework to support the next decade of scientific and industrial analysis. NumPy is the primary array programming library for Python; here its fundamental concepts are reviewed and its evolution into a flexible interoperability layer between increasingly specialized computational libraries is discussed.

MeSH Terms

Affiliated Institutions

• University of California, Berkeley US
• Temple University US
• Los Alamos National Laboratory US
• Tallinn University EE
• University of Jyväskylä FI
• Merck (Japan) JP
• Oldham Council GB
• University of Cambridge GB
• Tallinn University of Technology EE
• Amazon (United States) US
• Utah State University US
• University of Toronto CA
• University of British Columbia CA
• University of Oxford GB
• Google (Switzerland) CH
• Stellenbosch University ZA
• Enthought (United States) US
• University of California, Irvine US
• Berkeley College US
• Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics CA
• University of Birmingham GB
• Karlsruhe University of Education DE
• Fluor (United States) US
• Quansight (United States) US
• Film Independent US
• Imaging Center US
• Google (United States) US

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