pydata / pydata/xarray

Support slices when using the tuple renaming shortcut in `sel`/`isel`?

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API design
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Python
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Description

What is your issue?

I generally want indexed objects to have different dimension names than their original ones, so index quite often with .sel(original_dim_name=("new_dim_name", indexing_array)) instead of creating a dataarray for indexing_array with "new_dim_name" as dimension.

This doesn't seem to work with slice objects though: .sel(original_dim_name=("new_dim_name", slice(4, None, 2))) errors out with

ValueError: Variable None: Could not convert tuple of form (dims, data[, attrs, encoding]): ('new_dim_name', slice(4, None, 2)) to Variable.

I am not sure if the tuple syntax is discouraged and should be avoided altogether or if it would be possible to support that. From the error message and the indexing rules it seems whichever implementation actually happens for the conversion of slices into arrays could kick in for the 2nd element in the case of tuples and before the creation of the Variable object in order to support this case.

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Research direction

Start at the sel/isel indexing entry points and review the linked indexing rules, then reproduce the tuple-renaming case with slice(4, None, 2). Done means the tuple form accepts slices without the Variable conversion error and preserves the requested new dimension name.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
data
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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