I'd be very interested to know if this exists as well. This issue
consistently arises when building test fixtures.
At the moment, I use this as a workaround (this may not apply for your use
case):
```julia
using Base.Test
# Infer tightened element type of array.
function infer_eltype(ar::Array)
# Determine element type by reduction loop
el_type = None
for el in ar
el_type = typejoin(el_type, typeof(el))
end
# If element type cannot be determined, go with collection's element type
if el_type == None
el_type = eltype(ar)
end
# Return inferred element type
return el_type
end
# Example use case
mat = {1.0 2; 3 4.0}
el_type = infer_eltype(mat)
tight_mat = convert(Array{el_type}, mat)
@test eltype(tight_mat) == Real
@test size(tight_mat) == size(mat)
@test isequal(tight_mat, mat)
```
Hope this helps.
On Monday, July 28, 2014 5:42:24 AM UTC+10, John Myles White wrote:
>
> Do we have a function that will take in an Array{Any}, compute the
> typejoin of its elements and convert the Array to the tightest possible
> type?
>
> — John
>
>
