ed` argument can be used to prevent vectorizing over certain arguments. This can be useful for array-like arguments of a fixed length such as the coefficients for a polynomial as in `polyval`: >>> def mypolyval(p, x): ... _p = list(p) ... res = _p.pop(0) ... while _p: ... res = res*x + _p.pop(0) ... return res >>> vpolyval = np.vectorize(mypolyval, excluded=['p']) >>> vpolyval(p=[1, 2, 3], x=[0, 1]) array([3, 6]) Positional arguments may also be excluded by specifying their position: >>> vpolyval.excluded.add(0) >>> vpolyval([1, 2, 3], x=[0, 1]) array([3, 6]) The `signature` argument allows for vectorizing functions that act on non-scalar arrays of fixed length. For example, you can use it for a vectorized calculation of Pearson correlation coefficient and its p-value: >>> import scipy.stats >>> pearsonr = np.vectorize(scipy.stats.pearsonr, ... signature='(n),(n)->(),()') >>> pearsonr([[0, 1, 2, 3]], [[1, 2, 3, 4], [4, 3, 2, 1]]) (array([ 1., -1.]), array([ 0., 0.])) Or for a vectorized convolution: >>> convolve = np.vectorize(np.convolve, signature='(n),(m)->(k)') >>> convolve(np.eye(4), [1, 2, 1]) array([[1., 2., 1., 0., 0., 0.], [0., 1., 2., 1., 0., 0.], [0., 0., 1., 2., 1., 0.], [0., 0., 0., 1., 2., 1.]]) Decorator syntax is supported. The decorator can be called as a function to provide keyword arguments. >>>@np.vectorize ...def identity(x): ... return x ... >>>identity([0, 1, 2]) array([0, 1, 2]) >>>@np.vectorize(otypes=[float]) ...def as_float(x): ... return x ... >>>as_float([0, 1, 2]) array([0., 1., 2.]) NFc