Updated on 07/06/2022

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numpy shape and reshape

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Shape of an Array

The shape of an array is the number of elements in each dimension.

Get the Shape of an Array

NumPy arrays have an attribute called shape that returns a tuple with each index having the number of corresponding elements.

Example

Print the shape of a 2-D array:

				
					import numpy as np

arr = np.array([[1, 2, 3, 4], [5, 6, 7, 8]])

print(arr.shape)

The example above returns (2, 4), which means that the array has 2 dimensions, where the first dimension has 2 elements and the second has 4.

Example

Create an array with 5 dimensions using ndmin using a vector with values 1,2,3,4 and verify that last dimension has value 4:

				
					import numpy as np

arr = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4], ndmin=5)

print(arr)
print('shape of array :', arr.shape)

Reshaping arrays

 

Reshaping means changing the shape of an array.

The shape of an array is the number of elements in each dimension.

By reshaping we can add or remove dimensions or change number of elements in each dimension.

Reshape From 1-D to 2-D

Example

Convert the following 1-D array with 12 elements into a 2-D array.

The outermost dimension will have 4 arrays, each with 3 elements:

				
					import numpy as np

arr = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12])

newarr = arr.reshape(4, 3)

print(newarr)

Reshape From 1-D to 3-D

Example

Convert the following 1-D array with 12 elements into a 3-D array.

The outermost dimension will have 2 arrays that contains 3 arrays, each with 2 elements:

				
					import numpy as np

arr = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12])

newarr = arr.reshape(2, 3, 2)

print(newarr)

Can We Reshape Into any Shape?

Yes, as long as the elements required for reshaping are equal in both shapes.

We can reshape an 8 elements 1D array into 4 elements in 2 rows 2D array but we cannot reshape it into a 3 elements 3 rows 2D array as that would require 3×3 = 9 elements.

Example

Try converting 1D array with 8 elements to a 2D array with 3 elements in each dimension (will raise an error):

				
					import numpy as np

arr = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8])

newarr = arr.reshape(3, 3)

print(newarr)

Returns Copy or View?

Example

Check if the returned array is a copy or a view:

				
					import numpy as np

arr = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8])

print(arr.reshape(2, 4).base)

Unknown Dimension

Example

Convert 1D array with 8 elements to 3D array with 2×2 elements:

				
					import numpy as np

arr = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8])

newarr = arr.reshape(2, 2, -1)

print(newarr)

Flattening the arrays

Flattening array means converting a multidimensional array into a 1D array.

We can use reshape(-1) to do this.

Example

Convert the array into a 1D array:

				
					import numpy as np

arr = np.array([[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6]])

newarr = arr.reshape(-1)

print(newarr)

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