SciPy/NumPy import guideline

Question

Notice: I checked for duplicate and nothing clearly answers my question. I trust you\'ll let me know if I missed something!

In an effort to clean up my code, I have been

Answer 1

I recommend doing something like

import numpy as np
import scipy as sp

instead. It is always dangerous to do from ... import * especially with large modules such as numpy and scipy. The following illustrates why:

>>> any(['foo'])
True
>>> from scipy import *
>>> any(['foo'])

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#2>", line 1, in <module>
     any(['foo'])
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\numpy\core\fromnumeric.py", line 1575, in any
    return _wrapit(a, 'any', axis, out)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\numpy\core\fromnumeric.py", line 37, in _wrapit
    result = getattr(asarray(obj),method)(*args, **kwds)
TypeError: cannot perform reduce with flexible type

What happens here? The standard python builtin function any is replaced by scipy.any which has different behavior. That might break any code that uses the standard any.

Answer 2

What about making classes and use just what you will need, fx: class one:

import cv2
from SIGBWindows import SIGBWindows
from SIGBAssg import *

class two:

import cv2
import numpy as np

from pylab import *
from scipy.cluster.vq import *
from scipy.misc import imresize

class three:

import cv2
import numpy as np

and Finally where we call the object:

import cv2
from SIGBWindows import SIGBWindows
from SIGBAssg import *

windows = SIGBWindows(mode="video")
windows.openVideo("somevideo.avi")
kmeans(windows)

I don't know if it is what you are looking for, but this approach it makes the code really clean and easy to add more features to it.

Answer 3

This post has some good information about the two modules (Relationship between scipy and numpy). It seems that Numpy's functionality is meant to be completely included within Scipy, although there are a few exceptions (see post). I would say it is safe to simply use Scipy for all of your needs since most important things like mathematical functions, arrays, and other things are included within Scipy.