Quick way to access first element in Numpy array with arbitrary number of dimensions?

Question

I have a function that I want to have quickly access the first (aka zeroth) element of a given Numpy array, which itself might have any number of dimensions. What\'s the qu

Answer 1

You can use a.item(0); see the documentation at numpy.ndarray.item.

A possible disadvantage of this approach is that the return value is a Python data type, not a numpy object. For example, if a has data type numpy.uint8, a.item(0) will be a Python integer. If that is a problem, a.flat[0] is better--see @user2357112's answer.