added dtype argument to LArray to set the type of the array explicitly instead of relying on auto-detection

Author: gdementen

doc/source/changes/version_0_30.rst.inc

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-.. py:currentmodule:: larray
+.. py:currentmodule:: larray
 
 
 Syntax changes
@@ -222,6 +222,8 @@ Miscellaneous improvements
 * renamed `a_min` and `a_max` arguments of :py:obj:`LArray.clip()` as `minval` and `maxval` respectively
   and made them optional (closes :issue:`747`).
 
+* added dtype argument to LArray to set the type of the array explicitly instead of relying on auto-detection.
+
 * implemented :py:obj:`LArray.reverse()` method to reverse one or several axes of an array (closes :issue:`631`).
 
 * added :py:obj:`set_options` allowing to set options for larray within a ``with`` block or globally:

larray/core/array.py

@@ -578,6 +578,8 @@ class LArray(ABCLArray):
     meta : list of pairs or dict or OrderedDict or Metadata, optional
         Metadata (title, description, author, creation_date, ...) associated with the array.
         Keys must be strings. Values must be of type string, int, float, date, time or datetime.
+    dtype : type, optional
+        Datatype for the array. Defaults to None (inferred from the data).
 
     Attributes
     ----------
@@ -656,8 +658,8 @@ class LArray(ABCLArray):
           F  10  11  12
     """
 
-    def __init__(self, data, axes=None, title=None, meta=None):
-        data = np.asarray(data)
+    def __init__(self, data, axes=None, title=None, meta=None, dtype=None):
+        data = np.asarray(data, dtype=dtype)
         ndim = data.ndim
         if axes is None:
             axes = AxisCollection(data.shape)