NumPy TutorialLesson 7Free preview

NumPy Data Types

This lesson is part of NumPy · All levels

Summary

Each NumPy array has a single data type (dtype) that determines how elements are stored in memory. Common types include int, float, string, and boolean; you can check them through the .dtype attribute and change them to .astype(). The right choice of dtype is important to control accuracy of calculation and memory usage.

Key points

The .dtype attribute indicates the data type of the entire array element.
Astype() creates a new array with the specified data type.
Type codes such as i4 and f8 represent integers of 4 bytes and float 8 bytes.
You can specify dtype when you create an array through np.array(data, dtype=...).

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