On Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 12:39 PM, Mark Wiebe <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 11:45 AM, Ralf Gommers < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 8:37 PM, Eli Stevens (Gmail) >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> > On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 10:40 AM, Ralf Gommers >> > <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> It would definitely need to get into beta 2, and even then I'm a >> >> little hesitant to push in such a change at the last moment. >> > >> > If I miss the 1.6.0b2 cutoff, would a change like this be appropriate >> > for 1.6.1, or will it need to wait until 1.7.0? I wish I'd known that >> > half floats were going to be in 1.6.0 (the bug tracker says 2.0); I'd >> > have started working on this a few weeks earlier. :) >> >> There likely will not be a 1.7.0, if things with 2.0 go according to >> plan. It probably wouldn't be a very appropriate change for 1.6.1. >> >> > >> >> It would >> >> need some testing with other libraries that use the numpy buffer >> >> protocol. >> > >> > I am currently working on a patch for cython to accept half-floats. >> > ATM, it is able to accept the data from numpy (though it does not yet >> > handle the bit-fiddling to expand the values into a float32 on read, >> > nor collapse it from a float32 back into a float16 on write). The >> > code change to numpy was literally a one-line change to add NPY_HALF >> > to a switch statement (though I haven't tried to import half floats >> > yet). Is one other library enough, or will I need to find another >> > library to patch as well? I think that OpenCL would probably be my >> > next choice, since I think that we'll eventually want float16 support >> > there too. >> >> If it works with Cython I think that's enough. With other libraries I >> did not mean that you should write patches for those, just some >> testing to make sure the change is 100% backwards compatible. >> >> >> Also, reading back the thread, Pauli seemed to disagree with >> >> this. >> > >> > On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 10:21 AM, Pauli Virtanen <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> The buffer interface cannot be used to export the half-float types, >> since >> >> the type is not specified in PEP 3118. Numpy cannot unilaterally add >> >> nonstandard format codes to the spec. >> > >> > I'm currently in the process of submitting a patch to CPython to >> > update the struct module to handle half-floats. So far, the response >> > on python-ideas has been generally positive (a couple +1s from people >> > with commit bits, GVR has chimed in on the thread with an aside (but >> > not an objection), etc.). Unless I'm misunderstanding the objection, >> > making half-floats an official part of the spec (the discussion on >> > python-ideas explicitly notes that numpy driving force behind the >> > change) would satisfy Pauli's concern. >> > >> > Next up for me is to get a patch onto the CPython issue tracker, but >> > as soon as I have that done, I'll start working on adding unit tests >> > to my numpy fork. I anticipate being able to get that done today. >> >> Sounds good. >> >> I've committed the patch adding 'e' to the buffer protocol and back-ported > it to the 1.6.x branch. This leaves the testing with Cython and getting > consensus from CPython about the letter to use in the struct module/buffer > interface. > > I didn't see any usable suggestions for an alternative to 'e' and not much resistance, so I expect 'e' will stick. Chuck
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