'b' character added when using numpy loadtxt

Question

I tried to create an array from a text file. I saw earlier that numpy had a method loadtxt, so I try it, but it add some junk character before each row...

# my txt file

    .--``--.
.--`        `--.
|              |
|              |
`--.        .--`
    `--..--`

# my python v3.4 program

import numpy as np
f = open('tile', 'r')
a = np.loadtxt(f, dtype=str, delimiter='\n')
print(a)

# my print output

["b'    .--``--.    '"
 "b'.--`        `--.'"
 "b'|              |'"
 "b'|              |'"
 "b'`--.        .--`'"
 "b'    `--..--`    '"]

What are these 'b' and double quotes ? And where do they come from ? I tried some solution picked from internet, like open the file with codecs, change the dtype by 'S20', 'S11', and a lot of other things which don't work... What I expect is an array of unicode strings which look like this :

[['    .--``--.    ']
 ['.--`        `--.']
 ['|              |']
 ['|              |']
 ['`--.        .--`']
 ['    `--..--`    ']]

Info: I'm using python 3.4 and numpy from the debian stable repository

Answer 1

np.loadtxt and np.genfromtxt operate in byte mode, which is the default string type in Python 2. But Python 3 uses unicode, and marks bytestrings with this b.

I tried some variations, in an python3 ipython session:

In [508]: np.loadtxt('stack33655641.txt',dtype=bytes,delimiter='\n')[0]
Out[508]: b'    .--``--.'
In [509]: np.loadtxt('stack33655641.txt',dtype=str,delimiter='\n')[0]
Out[509]: "b'    .--``--.'"
...
In [511]: np.genfromtxt('stack33655641.txt',dtype=str,delimiter='\n')[0]
Out[511]: '.--``--.'
In [512]: np.genfromtxt('stack33655641.txt',dtype=None,delimiter='\n')[0]
Out[512]: b'.--``--.'
In [513]: np.genfromtxt('stack33655641.txt',dtype=bytes,delimiter='\n')[0]
Out[513]: b'.--``--.'

genfromtxt with dtype=str gives the cleanest display - except it strips blanks. I may have to use a converter to turn that off. These functions are meant to read csv data where (white)spaces are separators, not part of the data.

loadtxt and genfromtxt are over kill for simple text like this. A plain file read does nicely:

In [527]: with open('stack33655641.txt') as f:a=f.read()
In [528]: print(a)
    .--``--.
.--`        `--.
|              |
|              |
`--.        .--`
    `--..--`

In [530]: a=a.splitlines()
In [531]: a
Out[531]: 
['    .--``--.',
 '.--`        `--.',
 '|              |',
 '|              |',
 '`--.        .--`',
 '    `--..--`']

(my text editor is set to strip trailing blanks, hence the ragged lines).

---

@DSM's suggestion:

In [556]: a=np.loadtxt('stack33655641.txt',dtype=bytes,delimiter='\n').astype(str)
In [557]: a
Out[557]: 
array(['    .--``--.', '.--`        `--.', '|              |',
       '|              |', '`--.        .--`', '    `--..--`'], 
      dtype='<U16')
In [558]: a.tolist()
Out[558]: 
['    .--``--.',
 '.--`        `--.',
 '|              |',
 '|              |',
 '`--.        .--`',
 '    `--..--`']