Efficient way to add a singleton dimension to a NumPy vector so that slice assignments work

Question

In NumPy, how can you efficiently make a 1-D object into a 2-D object where the singleton dimension is inferred from the current object (i.e. a list should go to either a 1x

Answer 1

Why not simply add square brackets?

>> my_list
[1, 2, 3, 4]
>>> numpy.asarray([my_list])
array([[1, 2, 3, 4]])
>>> numpy.asarray([my_list]).shape
(1, 4)

.. wait, on second thought, why is your slice assignment failing? It shouldn't:

>>> my_list = [1,2,3,4]
>>> d = numpy.ones((3,4))
>>> d
array([[ 1.,  1.,  1.,  1.],
       [ 1.,  1.,  1.,  1.],
       [ 1.,  1.,  1.,  1.]])
>>> d[0,:] = my_list
>>> d[1,:] = numpy.asarray(my_list)
>>> d[2,:] = numpy.asarray([my_list])
>>> d
array([[ 1.,  2.,  3.,  4.],
       [ 1.,  2.,  3.,  4.],
       [ 1.,  2.,  3.,  4.]])

even:

>>> d[1,:] = (3*numpy.asarray(my_list)).T
>>> d
array([[  1.,   2.,   3.,   4.],
       [  3.,   6.,   9.,  12.],
       [  1.,   2.,   3.,   4.]])