As a last resort or if we want to have the latest code, we can build from source. In practice, it shouldn't be that hard, although depending on your operating system, you might run into problems. As operating systems and related software are rapidly evolving, in such cases, the best you can do is search online or ask for help. In this chapter, we give pointers on good places to look for help.

The source code can be retrieved with git or as an archive from GitHub. The steps to install NumPy from source are straightforward and given here. We can retrieve the source code for NumPy with git as follows:

$ git clone git://github.com/numpy/numpy.git numpy

$ tar -xzf ipython.tar.gz

Please refer to the following table for the git commands and source archive/zip links:

git clone git://github.com/numpy/numpy.git numpy

git clone http://github.com/scipy/scipy.git scipy

git clone git://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib.git

git clone --recursive https://github.com/ipython/ipython.git

Install on /usr/local with the following command from the source code directory:

$ python setup.py build
$ sudo python setup.py install --prefix=/usr/local

To build, we need a C compiler such as GCC and the Python header files in the python-dev or python-devel package.

If you have setuptools or pip, you can install NumPy, SciPy, matplotlib, and IPython with the following commands. For each library, we give two commands, one for setuptools and one for pip. You only need to choose one command per pair:

$ easy_install numpy
$ pip install numpy

$ easy_install scipy
$ pip install scipy

$ easy_install matplotlib
$ pip install matplotlib

$ easy_install ipython
$ pip install ipython

It may be necessary to prepend sudo to these commands if your current user doesn't have sufficient rights on your system.

After going through the installation of NumPy, it's time to have a look at NumPy arrays. NumPy arrays are more efficient than Python lists when it comes to numerical operations. NumPy arrays are, in fact, specialized objects with extensive optimizations. NumPy code requires less explicit loops than equivalent Python code. This is based on vectorization.

If we go back to highschool mathematics, then we should remember the concepts of scalars and vectors. The number 2, for instance, is a scalar. When we add 2 to 2, we are performing scalar addition. We can form a vector out of a group of scalars. In Python programming terms, we will then have a one-dimensional array. This concept can, of course, be extended to higher dimensions. Performing an operation on two arrays, such as addition, can be reduced to a group of scalar operations. In straight Python, we will do that with loops going through each element in the first array and adding it to the corresponding element in the second array. However, this is more verbose than the way it is done in mathematics. In mathematics, we treat the addition of two vectors as a single operation. That's the way NumPy arrays do it too, and there are certain optimizations using low-level C routines, which make these basic operations more efficient. We will cover NumPy arrays in more detail in the following chapter, Chapter 2, NumPy Arrays.

Imagine that we want to add two vectors called a and b. The word vector is used here in the mathematical sense, which means a one-dimensional array. We will learn in Chapter 3, Statistics and Linear Algebra, about specialized NumPy arrays that represent matrices. The vector a holds the squares of integers 0 to n; for instance, if n is equal to 3, a contains 0, 1, or 4. The vector b holds the cubes of integers 0 to n, so if n is equal to 3, then the vector b is equal to 0, 1, or 8. How would you do that using plain Python? After we come up with a solution, we will compare it with the NumPy equivalent.

The following function solves the vector addition problem using pure Python without NumPy:

def pythonsum(n):
   a = range(n)
   b = range(n)
   c = []

   for i in range(len(a)):
       a[i] = i ** 2
       b[i] = i ** 3
       c.append(a[i] + b[i])

   return c

The following is a function that solves the vector addition problem with NumPy:

def numpysum(n):
  a = numpy.arange(n) ** 2
  b = numpy.arange(n) ** 3
  c = a + b
  return c

Notice that numpysum() does not need a for loop. Also, we used the arange() function from NumPy, which creates a NumPy array for us with integers from 0 to n. The arange() function was imported; that is why it is prefixed with numpy.

Now comes the fun part. Remember that it was mentioned in the Preface that NumPy is faster when it comes to array operations. How much faster is Numpy, though? The following program will show us by measuring the elapsed time in microseconds for the numpysum() and pythonsum() functions. It also prints the last two elements of the vector sum. Let's check that we get the same answers using Python and NumPy:

#!/usr/bin/env/python

import sys
from datetime import datetime
import numpy as np

"""
 This program demonstrates vector addition the Python way.
 Run from the command line as follows

  python vectorsum.py n

 where n is an integer that specifies the size of the vectors.

 The first vector to be added contains the squares of 0 up to n.
 The second vector contains the cubes of 0 up to n.
 The program prints the last 2 elements of the sum and the elapsed time.
"""

def numpysum(n):
   a = np.arange(n) ** 2
   b = np.arange(n) ** 3
   c = a + b

   return c

def pythonsum(n):
   a = range(n)
   b = range(n)
   c = []

   for i in range(len(a)):
       a[i] = i ** 2
       b[i] = i ** 3
       c.append(a[i] + b[i])

   return c

size = int(sys.argv[1])

start = datetime.now()
c = pythonsum(size)
delta = datetime.now() - start
print "The last 2 elements of the sum", c[-2:]
print "PythonSum elapsed time in microseconds", delta.microseconds

start = datetime.now()
c = numpysum(size)
delta = datetime.now() - start
print "The last 2 elements of the sum", c[-2:]
print "NumPySum elapsed time in microseconds", delta.microseconds

The output of the program for 1000, 2000, and 3000 vector elements is as follows:

$ python vectorsum.py 1000
The last 2 elements of the sum [995007996, 998001000]
PythonSum elapsed time in microseconds 707
The last 2 elements of the sum [995007996 998001000]
NumPySum elapsed time in microseconds 171

$ python vectorsum.py 2000
The last 2 elements of the sum [7980015996, 7992002000]
PythonSum elapsed time in microseconds 1420
The last 2 elements of the sum [7980015996 7992002000]
NumPySum elapsed time in microseconds 168

$ python vectorsum.py 4000
The last 2 elements of the sum [63920031996, 63968004000]
PythonSum elapsed time in microseconds 2829
The last 2 elements of the sum [63920031996 63968004000]
NumPySum elapsed time in microseconds 274

Clearly, NumPy is much faster than the equivalent normal Python code. One thing is certain; we get the same results whether we are using NumPy or not. However, the result that is printed differs in representation. Notice that the result from the numpysum() function does not have any commas. How come? Obviously, we are not dealing with a Python list but with a NumPy array. We will learn more about NumPy arrays in the next chapter, Chapter 2, NumPy Arrays.

Scientists, data analysts, and engineers are used to experimenting. IPython was created by scientists with experimentation in mind. The interactive environment that IPython provides is viewed by many as a direct answer to MATLAB, Mathematica, and Maple.

The following is a list of features of the IPython shell:

The following list describes how to use the IPython shell:

We saw a number of so-called magic functions in action. These functions start with the % character. If the magic function is used on a line by itself, the % prefix is optional.

When we are in IPython's pylab mode ($ ipython –pylab), we can open manual pages for NumPy functions with the help command. It is not necessary to know the name of a function. We can type a few characters and then let tab completion do its work. Let's, for instance, browse the available information for the arange() function.

We can browse the available information in either of the following two ways:

If you have browsed the Internet looking for information on Python, it is very likely that you have seen IPython notebooks. These are web pages with text, charts, and Python code in a special format. Have a look at these notebook collections at the following links:

Often, the notebooks are used as an educational tool or to demonstrate Python software. We can import or export notebooks either from plain Python code or using the special notebook format. The notebooks can be run locally, or we can make them available online by running a dedicated notebook server. Certain cloud computing solutions, such as Wakari and PiCloud, allow you to run notebooks in the Cloud. Cloud computing is one of the topics of Chapter 11, Environments Outside the Python Ecosystem and Cloud Computing.

The main documentation website for NumPy and SciPy is at http://docs.scipy.org/doc/. Through this web page, we can browse the NumPy reference guide at http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy/reference/ and the user guide as well as several tutorials.

The popular Stack Overflow software development forum has hundreds of questions tagged numpy. To view them, go to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/numpy.

This might be stating the obvious, but numpy can also be substituted with scipy, ipython, or almost anything of interest. If you are really stuck with a problem or you want to be kept informed of NumPy development, you can subscribe to the NumPy discussion mailing list. The e-mail address is <numpy-discussion@scipy.org>. The number of e-mails per day is not too high, and there is almost no spam to speak of. Most importantly, developers actively involved with NumPy also answer questions asked on the discussion group. The complete list can be found at http://www.scipy.org/Mailing_Lists.

For IRC users, there is an IRC channel on irc://irc.freenode.net. The channel is called #scipy, but you can also ask NumPy questions since SciPy users also have knowledge of NumPy, as SciPy is based on NumPy. There are at least 50 members on the SciPy channel at all times.

In this chapter, we installed NumPy, SciPy, matplotlib, and IPython that we will be using in tutorials. We got a vector addition program working and convinced ourselves that NumPy offers superior performance. In addition, we explored the available documentation and online resources.

In the next chapter, Chapter 2, NumPy Arrays, we will take a look under the hood of NumPy and explore some fundamental concepts including arrays and data types.