Addition of test_from_numpy_empty_str Unit Test (#1089)

Author: nguyenv

setup.py

@@ -21,7 +21,8 @@
 ### DO NOT USE ON CI
 
 # Target branch: Note that this should be set to the current core release, not `dev`
-TILEDB_VERSION = "2.10.4"
+TILEDB_VERSION = "2.11.0"
+
 # allow overriding w/ environment variable
 TILEDB_VERSION = os.environ.get("TILEDB_VERSION") or TILEDB_VERSION
 

tiledb/tests/test_libtiledb.py

@@ -1849,13 +1849,7 @@ def test_varlen_write_bytes(self):
             assert_array_equal(A, T.multi_index[1 : len(A)][""])
 
     def test_varlen_sparse_all_empty_strings(self):
-        # this test addresses a fix for specific need for reads on a
-        # large existing array, see
-        #   https://github.com/TileDB-Inc/TileDB-Py/pull/475
-        # we currently have to write a placeholder at the end to
-        # avoid zero-length cell error
-        # TODO: follow-up with improved testing for empty var-length/strings
-        A = np.array(["", "", "", "", "", "\x00"], dtype=object)
+        A = np.array(["", "", "", "", ""], dtype=object)
         dim_len = len(A)
         uri = self.path("varlen_all_empty_strings")
 
@@ -3673,6 +3667,19 @@ def test_from_numpy_append_array3d_overwrite(self, append_dim):
             assert A.nonempty_domain() == ((0, 1), (0, 1), (0, 1))
             assert_array_equal(A[0:2, 0:2, 0:2], arr2)
 
+    @pytest.mark.parametrize("empty_str", ["", b""])
+    @pytest.mark.parametrize("num_strs", [1, 1000])
+    def test_from_numpy_empty_str(self, empty_str, num_strs):
+        uri = self.path("test_from_numpy_empty_str")
+        np_array = np.asarray([empty_str] * num_strs, dtype="O")
+        tiledb.from_numpy(uri, np_array)
+
+        with tiledb.open(uri, "r") as A:
+            assert_array_equal(A[:], np_array)
+            if has_pandas():
+                assert_array_equal(A.query(use_arrow=True).df[:][""], np_array)
+                assert_array_equal(A.query(use_arrow=False).df[:][""], np_array)
+
 
 class ConsolidationTest(DiskTestCase):
     def test_array_vacuum(self):