This bug is active in 0.13.1 since February (I mean that's when 0.13.1 was released). Don't you think breaking something simple as df.UVIS[0] warrants releasing a bugfix release?

python test_read.py
/Users/maye/Library/Enthought/Canopy_64bit/User/lib/python2.7/site-packages/scipy/io/idl.py:180: UserWarning: warning: empty strings are now set to '' instead of None
  warnings.warn("warning: empty strings are now set to '' instead of None")
0.13.1
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test_read.py", line 7, in <module>
    print df.UVIS[0]
  File "/Users/maye/Library/Enthought/Canopy_64bit/User/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pandas-0.13.1-py2.7-macosx-10.6-x86_64.egg/pandas/core/series.py", line 493, in __getitem__
    return self._constructor(result,index=[key]*len(result)).__finalize__(self)
  File "/Users/maye/Library/Enthought/Canopy_64bit/User/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pandas-0.13.1-py2.7-macosx-10.6-x86_64.egg/pandas/core/series.py", line 220, in __init__
    raise_cast_failure=True)
  File "/Users/maye/Library/Enthought/Canopy_64bit/User/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pandas-0.13.1-py2.7-macosx-10.6-x86_64.egg/pandas/core/series.py", line 2600, in _sanitize_array
    raise Exception('Data must be 1-dimensional')
Exception: Data must be 1-dimensional

Ok, to be fair, this might be just my highly unusual data. The IDLSAV files are the weirdest creatures. Having 2D numpy arrays per dataframe cell now.

@michaelaye

this is a real special case that is not recommend in any event. To be honest I think we should ban this type of thing, but too late for that.

0.14.0 should be coming shortly anyhow

Should we work on a better IDLSAV importer?

In [1]: import urllib2

In [2]: url = 'http://python4astronomers.github.com/_downloads/myidlfile.sav'

In [3]: open('myidlfile.sav', 'wb').write(urllib2.urlopen(url).read())

In [4]: from scipy.io.idl import readsav

In [5]: data = readsav('myidlfile.sav')
/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/scipy/io/idl.py:167: UserWarning: warning: empty strings are now set to '' instead of None
  warnings.warn("warning: empty strings are now set to '' instead of None")

In [6]: data
Out[6]: 
{'str': rec.array([ (12.520000457763672, -27.219999313354492, array([  8.69999981,   8.60000038,   9.60000038,  10.10000038,  11.5       ], dtype=float32))], 
       dtype=[(('ra', 'RA'), '>f4'), (('dec', 'DEC'), '>f4'), (('fluxes', 'FLUXES'), 'O')]),
 'x': array([ 0.        ,  0.33333334,  0.66666669,  1.        ,  1.33333337,
         1.66666663,  2.        ,  2.33333325,  2.66666675,  3.        ,
         3.33333325,  3.66666675,  4.        ,  4.33333349,  4.66666651,
         5.        ,  5.33333349,  5.66666651,  6.        ,  6.33333349,
         6.66666651,  7.        ,  7.33333349,  7.66666651,  8.        ], dtype=float32),
 'y': array([ 0.        ,  0.32745016,  0.62514514,  0.88137364,  1.09861231,
         1.2837956 ,  1.44363546,  1.58348906,  1.70741141,  1.8184464 ,
         1.91889644,  2.01052713,  2.0947125 ,  2.17253971,  2.24487901,
         2.31243849,  2.37579918,  2.43544436,  2.4917798 ,  2.54514909,
         2.59584522,  2.64412069,  2.69019413,  2.73425555,  2.77647233], dtype=float32)}

what do you do with the after getting the weird scipy object?

file = 'FUV2005_195_19_52_08_UVIS_011EN_ICYEXO001_PRIME.sav'
tmp = readsav(file)
df = pd.DataFrame.from_records(tmp['datastruct2'])

Explanation: the dictionary of readsav has 3 keys, but only the first key contains all the data.
so check what keys are in the output object of readsav.

that's just an odd structure (but maybe you WANT to keep the data like that).

that's true, I don't know how they created those files. But I could swear I saw exactly the same symptom before: 1 key useful, 2 keys just looking like the end markers of a stone-age C or FORTRAN structure. BTW, wouldn't it be cool if these github issue discussion box could be iPython notebook cells? ;)

It prob would pay to make these IDL into a useful python object (not just read it in), but allow manipulation of multiple of them (maybe this already exists somewhere)...

this is what I do when I have multiple 'things' that are related, separate the bits that are computation/vectorizable into Frames/Panels, etc. and wrap them in objects that are nice

u mean to write a wrapper class that provides access to the data? Yes, for my case I'm planning to do that. I was just wondering if my case is maybe a standard case of an old saving format of IDL and if newer created structures are all more sane, like the one you found there. Have to understand how this was created. Ah, there might be a version string hidden inside somewhere..

yep that's what I mean