custom_len¶
- halotools.utils.custom_len(x)[source]¶
Simple method to return a zero-valued 1-D numpy array with the length of the input x.
- Parameters:
- xarray_like
Can be an iterable such as a list or non-iterable such as a float.
- Returns:
- array_lengthint
length of x
Notes
Simple workaround of an awkward feature of numpy. When evaluating the built-in len() function on non-iterables such as a float or int, len() returns a TypeError, rather than unity. Most annoyingly, the same is true on an object such as x=numpy.array(4), even though such an object formally counts as an Iterable, being an ndarray. This nuisance is so ubiquitous that it’s convenient to have a single line of code that replaces the default python len() function with sensible behavior.
Examples
>>> x, y, z = 0, [0], None >>> xlen, ylen, zlen = custom_len(x), custom_len(y), custom_len(z)