Python High Performance - Second Edition

NumPy arrays

NumPy arrays can be used as normal Python objects in Cython using their already optimized broadcasted operations. However, Cython provides a numpy module with better support for direct iteration.

When we normally access an element of a NumPy array, a few other operations take place at the interpreter level causing a major overhead. Cython can bypass those operations and checks by acting directly on the underlying memory area used by NumPy arrays, and thus obtaining impressive performance gains.

NumPy arrays can be declared as the ndarray data type. To use the data type in our code, we first need to cimport the numpy Cython module (which is not the same as the Python NumPy module). We will bind the module to the c_np variable ...