scverse / scverse/spatialdata

Tool to migrate data between SpatialData versions

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#680 5 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Description

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
When the specification of SpatialData is changed, existing datasets do not have these changes, and under circumstances may even become incompatible.

For the in-memory representation, the library's reader functions support reading older versions (in most cases). However, users may want to upgrade the on-disk data to the latest version. Another case is when something is not covered by backward-compatibility of readers, e.g. due to errors in the data (#655).

Describe the solution you'd like
As discussed earlier, we want a tool for migrating data, if more format changes occur in future. I open this new issue for tracking this, since #655 was too specific and is closed.

Describe alternatives you've considered

  • Relying on backward-compatible readers, then using write to save in the latest format: Some cases may not be covered by readers.
  • Adding a new "upgrade" function to the spatialdata library: Migration is not a frequent use case and would bloat the library, especially if supporting special cases (one-time issues, erronous data). Additionally, backward-compatibility of certain features can be easily deprecated in the library, while still preserving it in a separate tool.
  • Separate spatialdata-migrate tool

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 reviewing the migration requirements in this issue and the related case in #655. Compare the proposed separate spatialdata-migrate tool with relying on backward-compatible readers and write; done would mean a defined migration approach for upgrading on-disk SpatialData across specification versions, including unsupported or erroneous data cases.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
data
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
30/100

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