Store prefix does not always follow str typing

[maxrjones]

It's currently possible to use a PosixPath for the prefix when creating a store, which is also used for the store's prefix attribute. This is causing some difficulties in VirtualiZarr since it's harder to reason about relative paths and we cannot rely on str methods being available. Is this intentional?

import obstore
from pathlib import Path

file_url = "../../../../../../private/var/folders/70/hc_nynms54d8lp67z4rsfctc0000gp/T/pytest-of-max/pytest-13/test_convert_relative_paths_to0/air.nc"
path = Path(file_url)
store = LocalStore(prefix=path.parent)
print(store.prefix)

PosixPath('../../../../../../private/var/folders/70/hc_nynms54d8lp67z4rsfctc0000gp/T/pytest-of-max/pytest-13/test_convert_relative_paths_to0')

[kylebarron]

It's intentional for LocalStore.prefix to be a Path because that's the most appropriate type to represent a path on a local disk. We could potentially canonicalize the path so it's not relative.

we cannot rely on str methods being available

You can call str(path)...?

[kylebarron]

does the upstream implementation allow relative prefixes?

the upstream implementation canonicalizes on its own, but we store the input before we pass into object_store, because we can't get the data back out.

yes, that's what I do now - it was just surprising to need to given the typing.

The typing returns a Path...?

obstore/obstore/python/obstore/_store/__init__.pyi

Line 189 in b87054e

def prefix(self) -> Path | None:

[maxrjones]

The typing returns a Path...?

huh yeah that definitely says Path. Why does https://developmentseed.org/obstore/latest/api/store/aws/#obstore.store.S3Store.prefix say str?

[kylebarron]

Because S3Store.prefix returns a str while LocalStore.prefix returns a Path https://developmentseed.org/obstore/latest/api/store/local/#obstore.store.LocalStore.prefix

[maxrjones]

🤦‍♂️ sorry, I assumed they were the same. my bad.

[kylebarron]

In theory we could add our own Path class to represent a cloud path: #498