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I am working on a Python C-extension code. Currently, a 1D C-array is converted to a Python List. Now I need to convert an ND-array, described by a 1) data type, 2) shape (as a 1D integer vector, for example, 2x4x3 array), and 3) data binary payload as serialized array elements of data-type.

I noticed that there is an array object in python: https://docs.python.org/2/library/array.html

I prefer to convert the ND array buffer to an array object instead of requiring installation of numpy ndarray - an additional dependency, but I failed to find any C-API to create/read/write Python-array objects from C.

does this interface (something similar to PyList_New) exist?

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    The Python array class is not multi-dimensional. But for interface the class offers a buffer protocol. Also switch to Py3 if you can. If you don't want to use numpy, why the [numpy] tag? Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 4:15
  • I found the buffer object API, which supports shapes (ND) and data types: docs.python.org/2/c-api/… is a buffer object good for this purpose? Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 4:20
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    I haven't used it so can't help. BUT, what do you intend to do with these 'arrays' in Python. Without numpy or PIL it doesn't look like you can do much; at least I'm not aware of any builtin packages that use attributes like shape and strides. Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 4:28
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    You should almost certainly use either nested lists or NumPy. array.array arrays will be useless to you, and the buffer API is mostly useful for C-level access, not for providing a Python interface. Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 4:44
  • is there a convenient/short way to create multi-dimensional list? the data loading may have various dimensions , 3D, or 4D, a nested loop is a bit cumbersome? alternatively, a list reshape function in C-API would also solve this problem. this is in C. Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 13:35
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