Re: [Matplotlib-users] numarray, numpy, numeric, numerix, scipy,...

John Hunter wrote:
>     John> I don't have one and I don't think it's good design for my
>     John> software installer to go creating one for people as part of
>     John> a larger software installation. I think that sniffing would
>     John> be a better (complementary, not replacement) solution, so
>     John> that whichever the user decides to install, it just works.
>
> You have a few options.  You can set the rc parameters inside your
> script, you do not need to change a system wide rc file
>
>   from matplotlib import rcParams
>   rcParams['numerix'] = 'numpy'
>   #...now import matplotlib.numerix, pylab, etc...
>   
That's what I'm currently using, actually (see start of this thread).
> You can also provide per directory configuration files.  Ie, you can
> create a matplotlibrc file (http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlibrc) in
> the same dir as your main-level script, and it will respect that one
> so you need not worry about overriding a system rc file when you
> install your software.
>   
I already have a config file for our application, if I did anything like 
this it would be to add an extra option to our existing config file, not 
create an additional one. Although this one was nice to know.
>     John> For now I will select numpy. Is that the one that Matplotlib
>     John> looks for first?
>
> There are two issues here: build time configuration and run time
> configuration.  We used to do neither, now at built time we try and
> find one of numpy/numarray/Numeric (in that order) and then generate
> an rc file with the found one as the default.
>
> We could also do run time dynamic imports.  I'm of two minds here: the
> more we try and do automatically, the harder it is to detect and fix
> bugs and problems when they arise.  The setup is already pretty
> complex, if we are automatically choosing numerix and backend
> settings, I could see some difficulties in debugging problems.  But I
> can see the advantages to it as well...
>   
I'm thinking that *if* a preference has been specified, that should be 
used (and possibly throw and error if it fails). But if no preference is 
specified, then a sniffing approach should work, something like the 
following, which has worked for me without any issues so far, on a 
number of different platforms. This approach would facilitate debugging, 
knowing that you can force a particular numeric-array import.

try:
    import psyco
    psyco.full()
    print "Running with PSYCO optimisation..."
except ImportError:
    pass

-- 
John Pye
Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
http://pye.dyndns.org/