use dtype=object for sequences first not accepted by np.asarray

Author: bnavigator

numcodecs/json.py

@@ -54,7 +54,10 @@ def __init__(self, encoding='utf-8', skipkeys=False, ensure_ascii=True,
         self._decoder = _json.JSONDecoder(**self._decoder_config)
 
     def encode(self, buf):
-        buf = np.asarray(buf)
+        try:
+            buf = np.asarray(buf)
+        except ValueError:
+            buf = np.asarray(buf, dtype=object)
         items = buf.tolist()
         items.extend((buf.dtype.str, buf.shape))
         return self._encoder.encode(items).encode(self._text_encoding)

numcodecs/msgpacks.py

@@ -52,7 +52,10 @@ def __init__(self, use_single_float=False, use_bin_type=True, raw=False):
         self.raw = raw
 
     def encode(self, buf):
-        buf = np.asarray(buf)
+        try:
+            buf = np.asarray(buf)
+        except ValueError:
+            buf = np.asarray(buf, dtype=object)
         items = buf.tolist()
         items.extend((buf.dtype.str, buf.shape))
         return msgpack.packb(items, use_bin_type=self.use_bin_type,