title: How to convert Python dictionary object to numpy array
body: <p>I have python dict object with key as datetime.date object and values as tuple objects:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; data_dict
  {datetime.date(2006, 1, 1): (5, 3),
   datetime.date(2006, 1, 2): (8, 8),
   datetime.date(2006, 1, 3): (8, 5),
   datetime.date(2006, 1, 4): (3, 3),
   datetime.date(2006, 1, 5): (3, 3),
   datetime.date(2006, 1, 6): (4, 3),
  ...
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and I want to convert it to numpy array object in this format:</p>
  
  <pre><code>dtype([('date', '|O4'), ('high', '&lt;i1'), ('low', '&lt;i1')])
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>so that I could store it on disk and later work with it, and learn, in numpy, matplotlib...</p>
  
  <p>As a matter of fact, I thought to use this format after looking at this matplotlib examples: <a href="http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/users/recipes.html" rel="nofollow">http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/users/recipes.html</a> but can't find my way out how to get there.</p>