How to check if a value is of a NumPy type?

Question

Imagine you have a value that might or might not be one of the NumPy dtypes. How would you write a function that checks which is the case?

def is_numpy(value):
    # how to code?

I believe `isinstance(value, numpy.ndarray)`, should work as all(I think) `numpy` data structures are subclasses of `numpy.ndarray`. — Akavall, Aug 21 '14 at 18:07
Do you want to detect just scalars (e.g., instances of `float64`, `uint32`, etc.), or both scalars and ndarray instances? (Or something else?) — Mark Dickinson, Aug 21 '14 at 18:24
In that case, `isinstance(value, np.generic)` might be an option. — Mark Dickinson, Aug 22 '14 at 07:33

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:24

2

One way I've found that works was used by Mike T in his answer to Converting numpy dtypes to native python types:

def is_numpy(value):
    return hasattr(value, 'dtype')

I'm not sure whether or not this is the preferred method, but it's relatively simple and clean.

edited May 23 '17 at 10:24

Community

answered Aug 21 '14 at 17:36

jrothenbuhler

1 Answers1