How to make an array immutable using numpy

Recipe Objective

While operating over arrays, some arrays might become keyvalues that must not be altered throughout the processing. So it's better if we can make the array fixed or immutable.

So this recipe is a short example on how to make an array immutable. Let's get started.

Step 1 - Import the library

import numpy as np

Let's pause and look at these imports. Numpy is generally helpful in data manipulation while working with arrays. It also helps in performing mathematical operation.

Step 2 - Generating a random array

a = np.random.random(10)

We have generated a random array of size 10.

Step 3 - Making the array immutable

a.flags.writeable = False a[0] = 1

Here, we are making the array unwritable.

Step 5 - Let's look at our dataset now

Once we run the above code snippet, we will see a ValueError being thrown stating assignment destination is read-only

Scroll down to ipython file to visualize the error.