SO thread 'Multiply two arrays element wise, where one of the arrays has arrays as elements' has an example of constructing an array from arrays. If the subarrays are the same size, numpy makes a 2d array. But if they differ in length, it makes an array with dtype=object
, and the subarrays retain their identity.
Following that, you could do something like this:
In [5]: result=np.array([np.zeros((1)),np.zeros((2))])
In [6]: result
Out[6]: array([array([ 0.]), array([ 0., 0.])], dtype=object)
In [7]: np.append([result[0]],[1,2])
Out[7]: array([ 0., 1., 2.])
In [8]: result[0]
Out[8]: array([ 0.])
In [9]: result[0]=np.append([result[0]],[1,2])
In [10]: result
Out[10]: array([array([ 0., 1., 2.]), array([ 0., 0.])], dtype=object)
However, I don't offhand see what advantages this has over a pure Python list or lists. It does not work like a 2d array. For example I have to use result[0][1]
, not result[0,1]
. If the subarrays are all the same length, I have to use np.array(result.tolist())
to produce a 2d array.