numpy · juliantaylor · Nov 2, 2014 · Oct 31, 2014 · Nov 2, 2014
diff --git a/doc/release/1.9.1-notes.rst b/doc/release/1.9.1-notes.rst
@@ -12,13 +12,15 @@ Issues fixed
 * gh-5100: restore object dtype inference from iterable objects without `len()`
 * gh-5163: avoid gcc-4.1.2 (red hat 5) miscompilation causing a crash
 * gh-5138: fix nanmedian on arrays containing inf
+* gh-5240: fix not returning out array from ufuncs with subok=False set
 * gh-5203: copy inherited masks in MaskedArray.__array_finalize__
 * gh-2317: genfromtxt did not handle filling_values=0 correctly
 * gh-5067: restore api of npy_PyFile_DupClose in python2
 * gh-5063: cannot convert invalid sequence index to tuple
 * gh-5082: Segmentation fault with argmin() on unicode arrays
 * gh-5095: don't propagate subtypes from np.where
 * gh-5104: np.inner segfaults with SciPy's sparse matrices
+* gh-5251: Issue with fromarrays not using correct format for unicode arrays
 * gh-5136: Import dummy_threading if importing threading fails
 * gh-5148: Make numpy import when run with Python flag '-OO'
 * gh-5147: Einsum double contraction in particular order causes ValueError

diff --git a/numpy/core/records.py b/numpy/core/records.py
@@ -71,7 +71,6 @@
 # are equally allowed
 
 numfmt = nt.typeDict
-_typestr = nt._typestr
 
 def find_duplicate(list):
     """Find duplication in a list, return a list of duplicated elements"""
@@ -527,15 +526,12 @@ def fromarrays(arrayList, dtype=None, shape=None, formats=None,
     if formats is None and dtype is None:
         # go through each object in the list to see if it is an ndarray
         # and determine the formats.
-        formats = ''
+        formats = []
         for obj in arrayList:
             if not isinstance(obj, ndarray):
                 raise ValueError("item in the array list must be an ndarray.")
-            formats += _typestr[obj.dtype.type]
-            if issubclass(obj.dtype.type, nt.flexible):
-                formats += repr(obj.itemsize)
-            formats += ','
-        formats = formats[:-1]
+            formats.append(obj.dtype.str)
+        formats = ','.join(formats)
 
        if dtype is not None:
         descr = sb.dtype(dtype)

diff --git a/numpy/core/tests/test_records.py b/numpy/core/tests/test_records.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 from __future__ import division, absolute_import, print_function
 
+import sys
 from os import path
 import numpy as np
 from numpy.testing import *
@@ -15,6 +16,14 @@ def test_fromrecords(self):
         r = np.rec.fromrecords([[456, 'dbe', 1.2], [2, 'de', 1.3]],
                             names='col1,col2,col3')
         assert_equal(r[0].item(), (456, 'dbe', 1.2))
+        assert_equal(r['col1'].dtype.kind, 'i')
+        if sys.version_info[0] >= 3:
+            assert_equal(r['col2'].dtype.kind, 'U')
+            assert_equal(r['col2'].dtype.itemsize, 12)
+        else:
+            assert_equal(r['col2'].dtype.kind, 'S')
+            assert_equal(r['col2'].dtype.itemsize, 3)
+        assert_equal(r['col3'].dtype.kind, 'f')
 
     def test_method_array(self):
         r = np.rec.array(asbytes('abcdefg') * 100, formats='i2,a3,i4', shape=3, byteorder='big')