Awkward

agoose77 fixed `ak.flatten` for NumpyArray with `len(shape) > 1` (PR 974).

ianna fixed sorting with missing values at `axis=0` and missing values in `ak.argsort` at any `axis` (PR 946).

agoose77 fixed `ak.unflatten` with `axis=0` by refactoring the internal function `ak._util.recursively_apply`, which also simplifies the implementation of `ak.unpacked` (PR 972).

jpivarski added a missing `import awkward._io` (PR 970).

1.4.0rc3 is to make sure that the PYPI_PASSWORD is now correctly set and that the package can be built from source. (Previously, it was missing the kernel-specification.yml that is now required for generating a header and a Python file in the source.)

As with all release candidates, it's going to be deleted someday. Only pin to non-pre releases!

henryiii moved deployment from Azure to GitHub Actions.

jpivarski made the kernel headers (C and Python) generate as part of the build.

ianna, agoose77, and jpivarski added to or corrected the documentation (PRs 891, 897, 925, 931, 943, 947, 951).

agoose77 added `ak.ptp` (PR 890), added support for Arrow FixedSizeListType (PR 907), implemented `ak.packed` (PRs 918, 912, 937), fixed up `ak.from_parquet` (PRs 923, 935) and `ak.unflatten` (PR 922), corrected `nbytes` (PR 928), updated the deprecation system (PR 929), fixed `ak.with_cache` (PR 942), and did internal refactoring (PR 952).

ianna added support for date-times (PRs 835, 915, 916), renamed TypedArrayBuilder → LayoutBuilder, thus completing it as it doesn't need to have a high-level interface (PR 924).

ioanaif started the C++ → Python refactoring project with help from agoose77 and jpivarski (PRs 884, 895, 896, 914, 957, 958, 962).

henryiii fixed an inexplicable bug in manylinux1 (PR 955), made the tests directory-independent (PR 953), and updated CMake infrastructure (PR 954). ~~I think this will be the first deployment using GitHub Actions, rather than Azure!~~ (No, that's PR 961, which is not included in this release.)

jpivarski fixed random bugs (PRs 901, 904, 950) and made `__getitem__` return Python `str` when they're strings (PR 874), pinned `jaxlib<0.1.68` because of an intermittent MacOS segfault (PR 963; see connected discussion).

ianna fixed class names in the documentation (PR 860).

agoose77 fixed `ak.is_none` (PR 864).

drahnreb made Parquet lazy-loading only build Forms for requested columns (PR 867).

agoose77 and drahnreb together made idioms like `x["z"] = None` work correctly by assigning a column of Nones (PR 880).

jpivarski fixed some union-simplification issues in getitem-field (PR 870). Also fixed various bugs to enable Numba JIT-compiled functions to iterate over VirtualArrays created by lazy-reading Parquet (PR 871). Fixed a relic of the `ptr().get()` → `data()` transition for kernel interfaces (PR 877). Fixed some null-type issues with Arrow/Parquet columns (PR 878). And fixed matrix multiplication of a vector as an Awkward record (PR 868).