python wire type conversion rules

LabRAD servers advertise type tags for each argument in their settings. These type tags specify what types of data are allowed to be passed to the setting. On the sending side, the pylabrad client must take a given python object and convert it to one of the types advertised by the recipient setting.

Here we specify how various combinations of python objects and type tags should be handled by pylabrad. Python objects are written assuming the following imports

from labrad.units import Hz, mHz
from labrad.units import WithUnit

LabRAD type tag	Python data	Value sent by pylabrad	Type tag sent by pylabrad
b	b = True/False	b	'b'
b	x = non-boolean	bool(x)	'b'
i	3	3	'i'
i	-4	-4	'i'
i	4.4	error	-
w	234	234	'w'
w	-234	error	-
w	2**40	error	-
'v[Hz]'	4.5*Hz	4.5 Hz	'v[Hz]'
'v[Hz]'	4.5*mHz	0.0045 Hz	'v[Hz]'
'v[Hz]'	4.5*s	error	-
'v[Hz]'	4.5	error	-
'v[]'	4.5	4.5	'v[]'
'v[]'	4.5*Hz	error	-
'v[]'	4	float(4)	'v[]'
'v'	4.5	4.5	'v[]'
'v'	4.5*Hz	4.5 Hz	'v[Hz]'
'?'	x = True/False	x	'b'
'?'	5	5	'i'
'?'	-5	-5	'i'
'?'	5L	5	'w'
'?'	-5L	error / 5 (??)	-/'i'
'?'	5.0	5.0	v[]
'?'	WithUnit(5, '')	5.0	v[]
'?'	5.0*Hz	5.0	v[Hz]
'*v'	[3Hz, 5km]	error	-
'*v'	[3Hz, 5kHz]	[3.0, 5000.0]	v[Hz]
'*v[kHz]'	[3Hz, 5kHz]	[.003, 5.0]	v[kHz]
'*i'	array(x,np.int32)	x	*i
'*i'	array(x,np.int64)	x (*)	*i
'*i'	array(x,np.uintNN)	x (*)	*i
'*w'	array(x,np.intNN)	x (*)	*w
'*w'	array(x,np.uintNN)	x (*)	*w
'*?'	array(x,np.intNN)	x (*)	*i
'*?'	array(x,np.uintNN)	x (*)	*w

(*) Numpy integer type (int32,int64,uint32,uint64) conversions to 'i'/'w' may be subject to bounds checking.