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# numpy.ma.make_mask

`numpy.ma.``make_mask`(m, copy=False, shrink=True, dtype=<type 'numpy.bool_'>)

  Create a boolean mask from an array.

  Return m as a boolean mask, creating a copy if necessary or requested. The function can accept any sequence that is convertible to integers, or `nomask`. Does not require that contents must be 0s and 1s, values of 0 are interepreted as False, everything else as True.

  Parameters: | m : array_like Potential mask. copy : bool, optional Whether to return a copy of m (True) or m itself (False). shrink : bool, optional Whether to shrink m to `nomask` if all its values are False. dtype : dtype, optional Data-type of the output mask. By default, the output mask has a dtype of MaskType (bool). If the dtype is flexible, each field has a boolean dtype.
  Returns: | result : ndarray A boolean mask derived from m.

  Examples

      >>> import numpy.ma as ma
      >>> m = [True, False, True, True]
      >>> ma.make_mask(m)
      array([ True, False,  True,  True], dtype=bool)
      >>> m = [1, 0, 1, 1]
      >>> ma.make_mask(m)
      array([ True, False,  True,  True], dtype=bool)
      >>> m = [1, 0, 2, -3]
      >>> ma.make_mask(m)
      array([ True, False,  True,  True], dtype=bool)

  Effect of the shrink parameter.

      >>> m = np.zeros(4)
      >>> m
      array([ 0.,  0.,  0.,  0.])
      >>> ma.make_mask(m)
      False
      >>> ma.make_mask(m, shrink=False)
      array([False, False, False, False], dtype=bool)

  Using a flexible dtype.

      >>> m = [1, 0, 1, 1]
      >>> n = [0, 1, 0, 0]
      >>> arr = []
      >>> for man, mouse in zip(m, n):
      ...     arr.append((man, mouse))
      >>> arr
      [(1, 0), (0, 1), (1, 0), (1, 0)]
      >>> dtype = np.dtype({'names':['man', 'mouse'],
                            'formats':[np.int, np.int]})
      >>> arr = np.array(arr, dtype=dtype)
      >>> arr
      array([(1, 0), (0, 1), (1, 0), (1, 0)],
            dtype=[('man', '<i4'), ('mouse', '<i4')])
      >>> ma.make_mask(arr, dtype=dtype)
      array([(True, False), (False, True), (True, False), (True, False)],
            dtype=[('man', '|b1'), ('mouse', '|b1')])