Read .npy arrays saved with NumPy directly in modern JavaScript runtimes.

Installation

npm install npyjs
# or
yarn add npyjs

Supports Node ≥18, modern browsers, and Deno/Bun.

Import

// Modern named export (recommended)
import { load } from "npyjs";

// Back-compatibility class (matches legacy docs/tests)
import npyjs from "npyjs";

Usage

1. Functional API (preferred)

import { load } from "npyjs";

const arr = await load("my-array.npy");
// arr has { data, shape, dtype, fortranOrder }
console.log(arr.shape); // e.g., [100, 784]

2. Legacy Class API (still supported)

import npyjs from "npyjs";

// Default options
const n = new npyjs();

// Disable float16→float32 conversion
const n2 = new npyjs({ convertFloat16: false });

const arr = await n.load("my-array.npy");

Accessing multidimensional elements

npyjs returns flat typed arrays with a shape. npyjs also ships a small helper to turn the flat data + shape into nested JS arrays.

import { load } from "npyjs";
import { reshape } from "npyjs/reshape";

const { data, shape, fortranOrder } = await load("my-array.npy");
const nested = reshape(data, shape, fortranOrder); // -> arrays nested by dims

For C-order arrays (the NumPy default), pass fortranOrder = false (default).

For Fortran-order arrays, pass true and the helper will return the natural row-major nested structure.

Or pair it with ndarray or TensorFlow.js:

import ndarray from "ndarray";
import { load } from "npyjs";

const { data, shape } = await load("my-array.npy");
const tensor = ndarray(data, shape);

console.log(tensor.get(10, 15));

Supported Data Types

Float16 Control

// Default: converts float16 → float32
const n1 = new npyjs();

// Keep raw Uint16Array
const n2 = new npyjs({ convertFloat16: false });

Complex Numbers

Complex arrays are returned as typed arrays with interleaved real and imaginary parts: [real0, imag0, real1, imag1, ...]

import { load } from "npyjs";

const { data, shape } = await load("complex-array.npy");
// For a shape of [3], data will have 6 elements: [re0, im0, re1, im1, re2, im2]

// Access the first complex number
const real0 = data[0];
const imag0 = data[1];

Writing .npy Files

Use the dump function to create .npy files:

import { dump } from "npyjs";
import { writeFileSync } from "fs";

// Dump a typed array
const arr = new Float32Array([1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0]);
const bytes = dump(arr, [2, 2]); // 2x2 shape
writeFileSync("output.npy", Buffer.from(bytes));

// Dump a plain array (dtype is inferred)
const plain = [1, 2, 3, 4];
const bytes2 = dump(plain, [4]);

Dumping Complex Arrays

Since complex types cannot be inferred from plain number arrays, use the dtype option:

import { dump } from "npyjs";

// Complex array: 1+2j, 3-4j as interleaved [real, imag, ...]
const complexData = [1, 2, 3, -4];
const bytes = dump(complexData, [2], { dtype: "c8" });  // complex64

// Or use c16 for complex128
const bytes128 = dump(complexData, [2], { dtype: "c16" });

Development

Commands

npm run build       # Build to dist/
npm test            # Run Vitest
npm run typecheck   # TypeScript type checking

License

Apache-2.0 © JHU APL

Made with ♥ at JHU APL

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