2.6. Supported Python features

Apart from the Language part below, which applies to both object mode and nopython mode, this page only lists the features supported in nopython mode.

2.6.1. Language

2.6.1.1. Constructs

Numba strives to support as much of the Python language as possible, but some language features are not available inside Numba-compiled functions. The following Python language features are not currently supported:

• Class definition
• Exception handling (try .. except, try .. finally)
• Context management (the with statement)
• Some comprehensions (list comprehension is supported, but not dict, set or generator comprehensions)
• Generator delegation (yield from)

The raise statement is supported in several forms:

• raise (to re-raise the current exception)
• raise SomeException
• raise SomeException(<arguments>): in nopython mode, constructor arguments must be compile-time constants

Similarly, the assert statement is supported with or without an error message.

2.6.1.2. Inner function and closure

Numba now supports inner functions as long as they are non-recursive and only called locally, but not passed as argument or returned as result. The use of closure variables (variables defined in outer scopes) within an inner function is also supported.

2.6.1.3. Function calls

Numba supports function calls using positional and named arguments, as well as arguments with default values and *args (note the argument for *args can only be a tuple, not a list). Explicit **kwargs are not supported.

Function calls to locally defined inner functions are supported as long as they can be fully inlined.

2.6.1.3.1. Recursive calls

Most recursive call patterns are supported. The only restriction is that the recursive callee must have a control-flow path that returns without recursing. Numba is able to type-infer recursive functions without specifying the function type signature (which is required in numba 0.28 and earlier). Recursive calls can even call into a different overload of the function.

2.6.1.4. Generators

Numba supports generator functions and is able to compile them in object mode and nopython mode. The returned generator can be used both from Numba-compiled code and from regular Python code.

Coroutine features of generators are not supported (i.e. the generator.send(), generator.throw(), generator.close() methods).

2.6.2. Built-in types

2.6.2.1. int, bool

Arithmetic operations as well as truth values are supported.

The following attributes and methods are supported:

• .conjugate()
• .real
• .imag

2.6.2.2. float, complex

Arithmetic operations as well as truth values are supported.

The following attributes and methods are supported:

• .conjugate()
• .real
• .imag

2.6.2.3. tuple

The following operations are supported:

• tuple construction
• tuple unpacking
• comparison between tuples
• iteration and indexing over homogenous tuples
• addition (concatenation) between tuples
• slicing tuples with a constant slice

2.6.2.4. list

Creating and returning lists from JIT-compiled functions is supported, as well as all methods and operations. Lists must be strictly homogenous: Numba will reject any list containing objects of different types, even if the types are compatible (for example, [1, 2.5] is rejected as it contains a int and a float).

Note

When passing a list into a JIT-compiled function, any modifications made to the list will not be visible to the Python interpreter until the function returns.

Warning

List sorting currently uses a quicksort algorithm, which has different performance characterics than the algorithm used by Python.

2.6.2.4.1. List comprehension

Numba supports list comprehension, but not the creation of nested list.

2.6.2.5. set

All methods and operations on sets are supported in JIT-compiled functions.

Sets must be strictly homogenous: Numba will reject any set containing objects of different types, even if the types are compatible (for example, {1, 2.5} is rejected as it contains a int and a float).

Note

When passing a set into a JIT-compiled function, any modifications made to the set will not be visible to the Python interpreter until the function returns.

2.6.2.6. None

The None value is supported for identity testing (when using an optional type).

2.6.2.7. bytes, bytearray, memoryview

The bytearray type and, on Python 3, the bytes type support indexing, iteration and retrieving the len().

The memoryview type supports indexing, slicing, iteration, retrieving the len(), and also the following attributes:

• contiguous
• c_contiguous
• f_contiguous
• itemsize
• nbytes
• ndim
• readonly
• shape
• strides

2.6.3. Built-in functions

The following built-in functions are supported:

• abs()
• bool
• complex
• divmod()
• enumerate()
• float
• int: only the one-argument form
• iter(): only the one-argument form
• len()
• min()
• max()
• next(): only the one-argument form
• print(): only numbers and strings; no file or sep argument
• range: semantics are similar to those of Python 3 even in Python 2: a range object is returned instead of an array of values.
• round()
• sorted(): the key argument is not supported
• type(): only the one-argument form, and only on some types (e.g. numbers and named tuples)
• zip()

2.6.4. Standard library modules

2.6.4.1. array

Limited support for the array.array type is provided through the buffer protocol. Indexing, iteration and taking the len() is supported. All type codes are supported except for "u".

2.6.4.2. cmath

The following functions from the cmath module are supported:

• cmath.acos()
• cmath.acosh()
• cmath.asin()
• cmath.asinh()
• cmath.atan()
• cmath.atanh()
• cmath.cos()
• cmath.cosh()
• cmath.exp()
• cmath.isfinite()
• cmath.isinf()
• cmath.isnan()
• cmath.log()
• cmath.log10()
• cmath.phase()
• cmath.polar()
• cmath.rect()
• cmath.sin()
• cmath.sinh()
• cmath.sqrt()
• cmath.tan()
• cmath.tanh()

2.6.4.3. collections

Named tuple classes, as returned by collections.namedtuple(), are supported in the same way regular tuples are supported. Attribute access and named parameters in the constructor are also supported.

Creating a named tuple class inside Numba code is not supported; the class must be created at the global level.

2.6.4.4. ctypes

Numba is able to call ctypes-declared functions with the following argument and return types:

• ctypes.c_int8
• ctypes.c_int16
• ctypes.c_int32
• ctypes.c_int64
• ctypes.c_uint8
• ctypes.c_uint16
• ctypes.c_uint32
• ctypes.c_uint64
• ctypes.c_float
• ctypes.c_double
• ctypes.c_void_p

2.6.4.5. enum

Both enum.Enum and enum.IntEnum subclasses are supported.

2.6.4.6. math

The following functions from the math module are supported:

• math.acos()
• math.acosh()
• math.asin()
• math.asinh()
• math.atan()
• math.atan2()
• math.atanh()
• math.ceil()
• math.copysign()
• math.cos()
• math.cosh()
• math.degrees()
• math.erf()
• math.erfc()
• math.exp()
• math.expm1()
• math.fabs()
• math.floor()
• math.frexp()
• math.gamma()
• math.hypot()
• math.isfinite()
• math.isinf()
• math.isnan()
• math.ldexp()
• math.lgamma()
• math.log()
• math.log10()
• math.log1p()
• math.pow()
• math.radians()
• math.sin()
• math.sinh()
• math.sqrt()
• math.tan()
• math.tanh()
• math.trunc()

2.6.4.7. operator

The following functions from the operator module are supported:

• operator.add()
• operator.and_()
• operator.div() (Python 2 only)
• operator.eq()
• operator.floordiv()
• operator.ge()
• operator.gt()
• operator.iadd()
• operator.iand()
• operator.idiv() (Python 2 only)
• operator.ifloordiv()
• operator.ilshift()
• operator.imatmul() (Python 3.5 and above)
• operator.imod()
• operator.imul()
• operator.invert()
• operator.ior()
• operator.ipow()
• operator.irshift()
• operator.isub()
• operator.itruediv()
• operator.ixor()
• operator.le()
• operator.lshift()
• operator.lt()
• operator.matmul() (Python 3.5 and above)
• operator.mod()
• operator.mul()
• operator.ne()
• operator.neg()
• operator.not_()
• operator.or_()
• operator.pos()
• operator.pow()
• operator.rshift()
• operator.sub()
• operator.truediv()
• operator.xor()

2.6.4.8. random

Numba supports top-level functions from the random module, but does not allow you to create individual Random instances. A Mersenne-Twister generator is used, with a dedicated internal state. It is initialized at startup with entropy drawn from the operating system.

• random.betavariate()
• random.expovariate()
• random.gammavariate()
• random.gauss()
• random.getrandbits(): number of bits must not be greater than 64
• random.lognormvariate()
• random.normalvariate()
• random.paretovariate()
• random.randint()
• random.random()
• random.randrange()
• random.seed(): with an integer argument only
• random.shuffle(): the sequence argument must be a one-dimension Numpy array or buffer-providing object (such as a bytearray or array.array); the second (optional) argument is not supported
• random.uniform()
• random.triangular()
• random.vonmisesvariate()
• random.weibullvariate()

Note

Calling random.seed() from non-Numba code (or from object mode code) will seed the Python random generator, not the Numba random generator.

Note

The generator is not thread-safe when releasing the GIL.

Also, under Unix, if creating a child process using os.fork() or the multiprocessing module, the child’s random generator will inherit the parent’s state and will therefore produce the same sequence of numbers (except when using the “forkserver” start method under Python 3.4 and later).

See also

Numba also supports most additional distributions from the Numpy random module.

2.6.5. Third-party modules

2.6.5.1. cffi

Similarly to ctypes, Numba is able to call into cffi-declared external functions, using the following C types and any derived pointer types:

• char
• short
• int
• long
• long long
• unsigned char
• unsigned short
• unsigned int
• unsigned long
• unsigned long long
• int8_t
• uint8_t
• int16_t
• uint16_t
• int32_t
• uint32_t
• int64_t
• uint64_t
• float
• double
• ssize_t
• size_t
• void

The from_buffer() method of cffi.FFI and CompiledFFI objects is supported for passing Numpy arrays and other buffer-like objects. Only contiguous arguments are accepted. The argument to from_buffer() is converted to a raw pointer of the appropriate C type (for example a double * for a float64 array).

Additional type mappings for the conversion from a buffer to the appropriate C type may be registered with Numba. This may include struct types, though it is only permitted to call functions that accept pointers to structs - passing a struct by value is unsupported. For registering a mapping, use:

numba.cffi_support.register_type(cffi_type, numba_type)

Out-of-line cffi modules must be registered with Numba prior to the use of any of their functions from within Numba-compiled functions:

numba.cffi_support.register_module(mod)

Register the cffi out-of-line module mod with Numba.

Inline cffi modules require no registration.