Getting data from ctypes array into numpy

Another possibility (which may require more recent versions of libraries than is available when the first answer was written -- I tested something similar with ctypes 1.1.0 and numpy 1.5.0b2) is to convert from the pointer to the array.

np.ctypeslib.as_array(
    (ctypes.c_double * array_length).from_address(ctypes.addressof(y.contents)))

This seems to still have the shared ownership semantics, so you probably need to make sure that you free the underlying buffer eventually.

Neither of these worked for me in Python 3. As a general solution for converting a ctypes pointer into a numpy ndarray in python 2 and 3 I found this worked (via getting a read-only buffer):

def make_nd_array(c_pointer, shape, dtype=np.float64, order='C', own_data=True):
    arr_size = np.prod(shape[:]) * np.dtype(dtype).itemsize 
    if sys.version_info.major >= 3:
        buf_from_mem = ctypes.pythonapi.PyMemoryView_FromMemory
        buf_from_mem.restype = ctypes.py_object
        buf_from_mem.argtypes = (ctypes.c_void_p, ctypes.c_int, ctypes.c_int)
        buffer = buf_from_mem(c_pointer, arr_size, 0x100)
    else:
        buf_from_mem = ctypes.pythonapi.PyBuffer_FromMemory
        buf_from_mem.restype = ctypes.py_object
        buffer = buf_from_mem(c_pointer, arr_size)
    arr = np.ndarray(tuple(shape[:]), dtype, buffer, order=order)
    if own_data and not arr.flags.owndata:
        return arr.copy()
    else:
        return arr

Creating NumPy arrays from a ctypes pointer object is a problematic operation. It is unclear who actually owns the memory the pointer is pointing to. When will it be freed again? How long is it valid? Whenever possible I would try to avoid this kind of construct. It is so much easier and safer to create arrays in the Python code and pass them to the C function than to use memory allocated by a Python-unaware C function. By doing the latter, you negate to some extent the advantages of having a high-level language taking care of the memory management.

If you are really sure that someone takes care of the memory, you can create an object exposing the Python "buffer protocol" and then create a NumPy array using this buffer object. You gave one way of creating the buffer object in your post, via the undocumented int_asbuffer() function:

buffer = numpy.core.multiarray.int_asbuffer(
    ctypes.addressof(y.contents), 8*array_length)

(Note that I substituted 8 for np.dtype(float).itemsize. It's always 8, on any platform.) A different way to create the buffer object would be to call the PyBuffer_FromMemory() function from the Python C API via ctypes:

buffer_from_memory = ctypes.pythonapi.PyBuffer_FromMemory
buffer_from_memory.restype = ctypes.py_object
buffer = buffer_from_memory(y, 8*array_length)

For both these ways, you can create a NumPy array from buffer by

a = numpy.frombuffer(buffer, float)

(I actually do not understand why you use .astype() instead of a second parameter to frombuffer; furthermore, I wonder why you use np.int, while you said earlier that the array contains doubles.)

I'm afraid it won't get much easier than this, but it isn't that bad, don't you think? You could bury all the ugly details in a wrapper function and don't worry about it any more.