retstepFalse

retstepFalse is a descriptive label used to refer to the behavior of certain numerical functions when their retstep parameter is set to False. In NumPy, several functions offer a retstep option that controls whether the function returns only the primary array of values or also the spacing between consecutive values. retstepFalse means you receive only the array of samples.

In practice, the most common function with a retstep parameter is numpy.linspace. When retstep is False (the default), numpy.linspace(start, stop, num) returns a single array of evenly spaced samples between start and stop. When retstep is True, it returns a tuple: (samples, step), where step is the spacing between adjacent samples. For example, linspace(0, 1, 5, retstep=False) yields an array like [0.0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1.0], while linspace(0, 1, 5, retstep=True) yields ([0.0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1.0], 0.25). The step value is determined by the range and the number of samples, and may differ slightly due to floating-point arithmetic or whether endpoint is included.

retstepFalse is therefore central to scenarios where only the sampled values are needed, such as plotting or numerical processing, without requiring the explicit spacing. If the step is needed for calculations or metadata, setting retstep to True provides both the samples and their uniform spacing.

See also: retstep parameter, numpy.linspace, numpy.geomspace.