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I am now trying to figure out how I can recover a numpy array from base64 data. This question and answer suggest it is possible: Reading numpy arrays outside of Python but an example is not given.

Using the code below as an example, how can I get a Numpy array from the base64 data if I know the dtype and the shape of the array?

import base64
import numpy as np

t = np.arange(25, dtype=np.float64)
s = base64.b64encode(t)
r = base64.decodestring(s)
q = ?????

I want a python statement to set q as a numpy array of dtype float64 so the result is an array identical to t. This is what the arrays encoded and decoded look like:

>>> t = np.arange(25,dtype=np.float64)
>>> t
array([  0.,   1.,   2.,   3.,   4.,   5.,   6.,   7.,   8.,   9.,  10.,
    11.,  12.,  13.,  14.,  15.,  16.,  17.,  18.,  19.,  20.,  21.,
    22.,  23.,  24.])
>>> s=base64.b64encode(t)
>>> s
'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADwPwAAAAAAAABAAAAAAAAACEAAAAAAAAAQQAAAAAAAABRAAAAAAAAAGEAAAAAAAAAcQAAAAAAAACBAAAAAAAAAIkAAAAAAAAAkQAAAAAAAACZAAAAAAAAAKEAAAAAAAAAqQAAAAAAAACxAAAAAAAAALkAAAAAAAAAwQAAAAAAAADFAAAAAAAAAMkAAAAAAAAAzQAAAAAAAADRAAAAAAAAANUAAAAAAAAA2QAAAAAAAADdAAAAAAAAAOEA='
>>> r = base64.decodestring(s)
>>> r
'\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\xf0?\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x08@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x10@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x14@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x18@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x1c@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 @\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00"@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00$@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00&@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00(@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00*@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00,@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00.@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x000@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x001@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x002@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x003@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x004@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x005@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x006@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x007@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x008@'
>>> q = np.array( ????

The reason I am asking is because I am working on a project where I would like to store a lot of Numpy arrays in a MySQL database in an app powered by django.

Using this django snippet I can store base64 data in a textfield: http://djangosnippets.org/snippets/1669/

I want to write the arrays to the database as base64 instead of converting the arrays to a string of unicode.

Thanks for your help.

share|improve this question

1 Answer

up vote 2 down vote accepted 
import base64
import numpy as np

t = np.arange(25, dtype=np.float64)
s = base64.b64encode(t)
r = base64.decodestring(s)
q=np.frombuffer(r,dtype=np.float64)

print(np.allclose(q,t))
# True
share|improve this answer
Thank you very much. – sequoia Jun 26 '11 at 19:03
I'll also add that I have made this work for multidimensional arrays by applying the q = np.reshape(q,(m,n)), where m and n where the original dimensions of the t array. – sequoia Jun 30 '11 at 7:06

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