From ND to 1D arrays

In [14]: b = np.reshape(a, (np.product(a.shape),))

In [15]: b
Out[15]: array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6])

or, simply:

In [16]: a.flatten()
Out[16]: array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6])

Although this isn’t using the np array format, (to lazy to modify my code) this should do what you want… If, you truly want a column vector you will want to transpose the vector result. It all depends on how you are planning to use this.

def getVector(data_array,col):
    vector = []
    imax = len(data_array)
    for i in range(imax):
        vector.append(data_array[i][col])
    return ( vector )
a = ([1,2,3], [4,5,6])
b = getVector(a,1)
print(b)

Out>[2,5]

So if you need to transpose, you can do something like this:

def transposeArray(data_array):
    # need to test if this is a 1D array 
    # can't do a len(data_array[0]) if it's 1D
    two_d = True
    if isinstance(data_array[0], list):
        dimx = len(data_array[0])
    else:
        dimx = 1
        two_d = False
    dimy = len(data_array)
    # init output transposed array
    data_array_t = [[0 for row in range(dimx)] for col in range(dimy)]
    # fill output transposed array
    for i in range(dimx):
        for j in range(dimy):
            if two_d:
                data_array_t[j][i] = data_array[i][j]
            else:
                data_array_t[j][i] = data_array[j]
    return data_array_t

For list of array with different size use following:

import numpy as np

# ND array list with different size
a = [[1],[2,3,4,5],[6,7,8]]

# stack them
b = np.hstack(a)

print(b)

Output:

[1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8]

One of the simplest way is to use flatten(), like this example :

 import numpy as np

 batch_y =train_output.iloc[sample, :]
 batch_y = np.array(batch_y).flatten()

My array it was like this :

    0
0   6
1   6
2   5
3   4
4   3
.
.
.

After using flatten():

array([6, 6, 5, ..., 5, 3, 6])

It’s also the solution of errors of this type :

Cannot feed value of shape (100, 1) for Tensor 'input/Y:0', which has shape '(?,)' 

I wanted to see a benchmark result of functions mentioned in answers including unutbu’s.

Also want to point out that numpy doc recommend to use arr.reshape(-1) in case view is preferable. (even though ravel is tad faster in the following result)

---

TL;DR: np.ravel is the most performant (by very small amount).

Benchmark

Functions:

• np.ravel: returns view, if possible
• np.reshape(-1): returns view, if possible
• np.flatten: returns copy
• np.flat: returns numpy.flatiter. similar to iterable

numpy version: ‘1.18.0’

Execution times on different ndarray sizes

+-------------+----------+-----------+-----------+-------------+
|  function   |   10x10  |  100x100  | 1000x1000 | 10000x10000 |
+-------------+----------+-----------+-----------+-------------+
| ravel       | 0.002073 |  0.002123 |  0.002153 |    0.002077 |
| reshape(-1) | 0.002612 |  0.002635 |  0.002674 |    0.002701 |
| flatten     | 0.000810 |  0.007467 |  0.587538 |  107.321913 |
| flat        | 0.000337 |  0.000255 |  0.000227 |    0.000216 |
+-------------+----------+-----------+-----------+-------------+

Conclusion

ravel and reshape(-1)‘s execution time was consistent and independent from ndarray size.
However, ravel is tad faster, but reshape provides flexibility in reshaping size. (maybe that’s why numpy doc recommend to use it instead. Or there could be some cases where reshape returns view and ravel doesn’t).
If you are dealing with large size ndarray, using flatten can cause a performance issue. Recommend not to use it. Unless you need a copy of the data to do something else.

Used code

import timeit
setup = '''
import numpy as np
nd = np.random.randint(10, size=(10, 10))
'''

timeit.timeit('nd = np.reshape(nd, -1)', setup=setup, number=1000)
timeit.timeit('nd = np.ravel(nd)', setup=setup, number=1000)
timeit.timeit('nd = nd.flatten()', setup=setup, number=1000)
timeit.timeit('nd.flat', setup=setup, number=1000)

Best and fastest among all the suggested solutions: np.reshape()

%timeit img1ary = np.reshape(img2ary,(np.product(img2ary.shape),1))
9.3 µs ± 69.8 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100000 loops each)

%timeit img1ary = img2ary.ravel()
157 ns ± 1.32 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10000000 loops each)

%timeit img1ary = img2ary.flatten()
961 ns ± 5.77 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 1000000 loops each)