Implement upstream

[andia89]

Great package, solved a lot of problems for me. SInce the matlab version 7.3 has been around a while now, did you consider implementing your changes upstream to scipy directly?

[skjerns]

Yes, this was discussed in scipy/scipy#11351

Main points:

• would induce optional dependency on h5py
• would have to be backwards-compatible, which would need a lot of work
  • currently scipy.io.loadmat returns quite silly data types. I think it's solved better in mat73, however I would need to keep with the previous functionality, and change things quite a bit.

so, in summary, nope, it's probably not going to happen soon :-/

Also it would make maintandence a bit harder for me, as for the higher code quality constraints in a big project such as scipy. So update-cycle would be slower and take more of my time.

[andia89]

Ah I see.

At least it seems that your main concern about silly return data types has been solved, no?
https://blog.nephics.com/2019/08/28/better-loadmat-for-scipy/ (the changes proposed here seem to have been implemented)

I looked a bit at the scipy code and indeed it would seem it is quite an undertaking to implement it, I just find it weird that the situation has now been like that for quite some time and the scipy devs don't seem to think it is a priority

[skjerns]

nice to see that there is progress w.t.r!

However, I think it's still quite cumbersome having to program all the backwards compatibility and kwarg combinations that the mess that is scipy.io.loadmat brings with it.

• Maybe one day I'll get to it
• If the Scipy team thinks that it would be good to integrate it somehow, I'd also be up for it.