Data Type Conversions Between MATLAB REST Function Services and Python

R2026b

When you use a MATLAB^® REST function service in your Python^® application, the service converts between Python data types and MATLAB data types. For information on data type conversions in Python when calling MATLAB Engine API for Python, see Pass Data Between MATLAB and Python from Python.

Pass Data from Python to MATLAB

When you pass data from Python to MATLAB, the MATLAB REST function service converts the data into the equivalent MATLAB data types.

Python Data Type	Resulting MATLAB Data Type (scalar unless otherwise noted)
matlab numeric array object	Numeric array See MATLAB Arrays as Python Variables.
Python objects that support the buffer protocol, such as memoryview, array.array, or NumPy ndarray	This conversion is not supported directly. You must first convert such types to a supported type, such as matlab.double, matlab.single, or one of the MATLAB integer types.
float	double
complex	Complex double
int	int64
float('nan') numpy.nan	NaN
float('inf') numpy.inf	Inf
bool	logical
str	char
bytearray	uint8 array
bytes	uint8 array
list	cell array
set	cell array
tuple	cell array
dict	struct dict keys must meet certain specifications. See Use MATLAB Dictionaries in Python.

Unsupported Python Data Types

Along with the exceptions noted in the table, the following conversions from Python data types to MATLAB data types are not supported.

• datetime.datetime

• datetime.timedelta

• enum type

• matlab.dictionary

• matlab.object

• None object

• numpy.datetime64

• numpy.timedelta64

• pandas.DataFrame

• Python objects other than dict that support the mapping protocol (such as collections.OrderedDict)

• Python class (module.type) objects

Pass Data from MATLAB to Python

When you pass data from MATLAB to Python, MATLAB converts the data into the equivalent Python data types.

MATLAB Output Argument Type (scalar unless otherwise noted)	Resulting Python Data Type
Numeric array	matlab numeric array object See MATLAB Arrays as Python Variables.
double single	float
Complex (any numeric type)	complex
int8, int16, int32, int64 uint8, uint16, uint32, uint64	int
NaN	float('nan')
Inf	float('inf')
logical	bool
char array (1-by-N or N-by-1)	str
string	str
string array (1-by-N or N-by-1)	list of str
struct	dict
cell array (1-by-N or N-by-1)	list

Unsupported MATLAB Data Types

The following conversions from MATLAB data types to Python data types are not supported.

• char array (M-by-N)

• string array (M-by-N)

• cell array (M-by-N)

• Sparse array

• struct array

• datetime

• duration

• dictionary

• table

• timetable

• Objects not produced by MATLAB (such as Java^® objects)

• Function handle

• MATLAB handle object (such as the containers.Map type)

• MATLAB value object (such as the categorical type)