title: How can I get Numpy to give an array of lists instead of tuples?
body: <p>When I make a numpy array out of my data, I get (as expected) a list of lists, but when I declare data types for them, I get what appears to be a list of tuples, which is no good. This is a problem because numpy seems to think that the first array is a 2D array, while the second is a 1D array (it gives its <code>.shape</code> as <code>(9,)</code>. I'd like to be able to maintain the usability of the 2D array but give it data types as below. Is there a way to do that? </p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; np.array(mtest)
  
  array([[',', '7.174707364110744'],
         ['the', '5.260736372733581'],
         ['.', '2.630943297842565'],
         ['of', '2.505952403774265'],
         ['and', '2.309647686709941'],
         ['a', '1.7517895552087845'],
         ['to', '1.7414375486448457'],
         [';', '1.5612359529022042']], 
        dtype='&lt;U18')
  
  &gt;&gt;&gt; np.array(mtest, dtype=[('token', np.unicode_, 64),('perc', np.float)])
  
  array([(',', 7.174707364110744), ('the', 5.260736372733581),
         ('.', 2.630943297842565), ('of', 2.505952403774265),
         ('and', 2.309647686709941), ('a', 1.7517895552087845),
         ('to', 1.7414375486448457), (';', 1.5612359529022042)], 
        dtype=[('token', '&lt;U64'), ('perc', '&lt;f8')])
  </code></pre>