fsspec / fsspec/kerchunk

Refactor file format backend openers

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#376 1 comment 4 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Dominant language
Python
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Problem

The API for Kerchunk's file format backend openers doesn't follow a consistent pattern.

Suggestion

Change the openers to each be a function returning a VirtualZarrStore (see #375), with standardized keyword arguments.

Advantages
  • Neater
  • Can any common standardize keyword arguments
  • Can do validation within file opening or immediately afterwards
  • Would make it more obvious how to add a new opener for a new file type
  • Could also allowing implementing a general file opener (like is done in pangeo-forge)
Implementation ideas
  • Perhaps each opener should inherit from a single abstract method?
  • Should there be some arguments that are valid for every backend (e.g. inline_threshold), and others that are specific to particular backends?
Questions

How to handle GRIB files? Combine before returning? Return as a hierarchy of multiple groups within a single store (like when opening with datatree)? Or return as list of VirtualZarrStores?

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the file-format backend API in the linked reference documentation, then read #375 and kerchunk/grib2.py to compare the proposed VirtualZarrStore return shape and GRIB handling. Done means the opener interface and keyword-argument rules are decided and consistently applied, including an agreed approach for GRIB files.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
backend, data-engineering
Issue type
Refactor
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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