[SciPy-Dev] removing netcdf_variable from netcdf.__all__

[Ralf Gommers]

On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 7:22 PM, Benjamin Root <ben.root at ou.edu> wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Ralf Gommers <
> ralf.gommers at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 6:57 PM, Benjamin Root <ben.root at ou.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 11:48 AM, Ralf Gommers <
>>> ralf.gommers at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> Question for users of scipy.io.netcdf: did you ever use netcdf_variable
>>>> directly, or only via netcdf_file.createVariable? The documentation says
>>>> that the latter is the only intended use, which means that this class
>>>> shouldn't be in __all__. https://github.com/scipy/scipy/pull/67 removes
>>>> it (and changes its __init__ in a non-backwards compatible way) - the patch
>>>> looks correct but I want to double check that no one is using this class.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Ralf
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Sorry for not replying earlier (I don't regularly track this list).  No,
>>> I don't use netcdf_variable directly.  However, would the documentation for
>>> the class's other methods still show up in the main documentation if you
>>> remove it from __all__?
>>>
>>> It should, since the io module docstring contains:
>>
>> Netcdf (:mod:`scipy.io.netcdf`)
>> ===============================
>>
>> .. module:: scipy.io.netcdf
>>
>> .. autosummary::
>>    :toctree: generated/
>>
>>    netcdf_file - A file object for NetCDF data
>>    netcdf_variable - A data object for the netcdf module
>>
>> Ralf
>>
>
> Ok, I am fine with that.  However, if we have this change in the call
> signature, I would still feel better having a little note in the docstring
> pointing out that change in case there was someone who was using this
> constructor directly.
>
> I am still a little wary of how the change to the call signature of the
> constructor was done.  In particular, I am not exactly sure why it would
> even be needed in the first place.  For each NC_* type, there is only one
> element size that is valid, and each dtype character code should only
> correspond to a single NC_* type (and vice-versa).  Why not have a dict of
> character code to element size, and just let the character code determine
> the item size?
>
> Or, maybe I am misunderstanding what is going on.  I will also double-check
> on my 32 and 64 bit machines to make sure that everything works as expected.
>
> Discussion about this is at https://github.com/scipy/scipy/pull/51
It clearly was broken before, size is platform dependent. If you find a
cleaner way to fix the bug, it's not too late to undo this change.

Ralf
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