pydata / pydata/xarray

Should `open_mfdataset` try to guess which engine to use?

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#10,834 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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design question
Dominant language
Python
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Description

What is your issue?

The guess_can_open logic in backends can be hard to get right. It is certainly helpful to be able to guess an engine when opening a single file, but when you are opening a whole bunch of files you probably should explicitly set the engine.

I guess the action on this ticket would be to make the engine kwarg required on open_mfdataset.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

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 by locating the open_mfdataset entry point and reading its current engine-handling path. Check how the existing backend guessing behavior is covered by tests; the work is done when the intended engine requirement is enforced consistently and the relevant tests pass.

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
42/100

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