obspy.core.trace.Trace.trim / padding / fill_value & masked arrays -- clarification request

Hi ObsPy community,

sorry for the longish title (I'd like to keep it descriptive) ...

I am somewhat puzzled with the behaviour of method Trace.trim() if padding AND fill_value is used.

From who I interpret the documentation on Trace.trim() (see http://docs.obspy.org/packages/autogen/obspy.core.trace.Trace.trim.html) I would expect that setting a fill_value would avoid creating a NumPy masked array (<class 'numpy.ma.core.MaskedArray'>), which otherwise is the case when gaps or pads occur. Instead a normal ndarray (<type 'numpy.ndarray'>) as in the case without gaps/pads is created as a result.

However, I observe a somewhat different behaviour, which is "something in between".

=== details (snip) ===

I am always starting with a trace as follows:

In : print tr
IV.MMN..HHZ | 2012-01-01T00:00:00.000000Z - 2012-01-01T20:50:58.990000Z | 100.0 Hz, 7505900 samples

(1) If I use simple trim() method (no padding) I obtain the following result, which is actually what I would expect:

In [16]: tr.trim(starttime=obspy.UTCDateTime("2012-01-01T20:00:00.000000Z"), endtime=obspy.UTCDateTime("2012-01-01T21:00:00.000000Z"))

In [17]: print trIV.MMN..HHZ | 2012-01-01T20:00:00.000000Z - 2012-01-01T20:50:58.990000Z | 100.0 Hz, 305900 samples

In [18]: tr.data
Out[18]: array([ -34., -41., -107., ..., 86., 119., 151.], dtype=float32)

In [19]: print type(tr.data)
<type 'numpy.ndarray'>

(2) In case instead I request for padding, I get a masked array due to the missing samples at the and which is fine:

In [20]: tr = tr_copy.copy()

In [21]: tr.trim(starttime=obspy.UTCDateTime("2012-01-01T20:00:00.000000Z"), endtime=obspy.UTCDateTime("2012-01-01T21:00:00.000000Z"), pad=True)

In [22]: print tr
IV.MMN..HHZ | 2012-01-01T20:00:00.000000Z - 2012-01-01T21:00:00.000000Z | 100.0 Hz, 360001 samples (masked)

In [23]: tr.data
Out[23]:
masked_array(data = [-34.0 -41.0 -107.0 ..., -- -- --],
              mask = [False False False ..., True True True],
        fill_value = 1e+20)

(3) However, if I try to avoid a masked array by setting a "fill_value", I expected to get a simple ndarray as in (1) just longer and filled with the fill_value, the trace is reported NOT to be masked, but I get again a class 'numpy.ma.core.MaskedArray' object, with a somewhat different setting.

In [32]: tr.trim(starttime=obspy.UTCDateTime("2012-01-01T20:00:00.000000Z"), endtime=obspy.UTCDateTime("2012-01-01T21:00:00.000000Z"), pad=True, fill_value=-999 )

In [33]: print tr
IV.MMN..HHZ | 2012-01-01T20:00:00.000000Z - 2012-01-01T21:00:00.000000Z | 100.0 Hz, 360001 samples

In [34]: print tr.data
[ -34. -41. -107. ..., -999. -999. -999.]

In [35]: print type(tr.data)
<class 'numpy.ma.core.MaskedArray'>

In [36]: tr.data
Out[36]:
masked_array(data = [ -34. -41. -107. ..., -999. -999. -999.],
              mask = False,
        fill_value = 1e+20)

=== END details (snap) ===

So what is the issue here?

- Is my expectation wrong?
- Am I missing something or is there some error in my reasoning?
- Is this eventually a bug/

Thanks for any hint and comments!
~petr

Hi Peter,

I did not have time to try it myself yet but from reading your post it
seems to me that case 3) indeed probably should return a regular
ndarray. I think this might best be discussed in form of an issue at github.

best,
Tobias

Thanks Tobias,

I'll make this become an issue (not immediately though), I just was not completely sure if my expectation is wrong ...
~petr