ImportError: cannot import name 'dask_array_type' from 'xarray.core.pycompat'

[douglatornell]

I'm considering using the https://github.com/yt87/pywgrib2_xr package. It hasn't been updated since Mar-2021. When I use it with xarray>2022.10 it raises an ImportError. The traceback is:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/doug/conda_envs/pywgrib2-xarray-2022.11/bin/pywgrib2", line 33, in <module>
    sys.exit(load_entry_point('pywgrib2-xr==0.2.3', 'console_scripts', 'pywgrib2')())
  File "/home/doug/conda_envs/pywgrib2-xarray-2022.11/bin/pywgrib2", line 25, in importlib_load_entry_point
    return next(matches).load()
  File "/home/doug/conda_envs/pywgrib2-xarray-2022.11/lib/python3.9/importlib/metadata.py", line 86, in load
    module = import_module(match.group('module'))
  File "/home/doug/conda_envs/pywgrib2-xarray-2022.11/lib/python3.9/importlib/__init__.py", line 127, in import_module
    return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1030, in _gcd_import
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1007, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 972, in _find_and_load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 228, in _call_with_frames_removed
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1030, in _gcd_import
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1007, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 986, in _find_and_load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 680, in _load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 850, in exec_module
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 228, in _call_with_frames_removed
  File "/home/doug/conda_envs/pywgrib2-xarray-2022.11/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pywgrib2_xr/__init__.py", line 30, in <module>
    from .accessor import Wgrib2DatasetAccessor
  File "/home/doug/conda_envs/pywgrib2-xarray-2022.11/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pywgrib2_xr/accessor.py", line 9, in <module>
    from xarray.core.pycompat import dask_array_type
ImportError: cannot import name 'dask_array_type' from 'xarray.core.pycompat' (/home/doug/conda_envs/pywgrib2-xarray-2022.11/lib/python3.9/site-packages/xarray/core/pycompat.py)

Looking at the present xarray code, it appears to me that the way to resolve this issue is to change the

from xarray.core.pycompat import dask_array_type

to

from xarray.core.pycompat import array_type
dask_array_type = array_type("dask")

Is this correct, or is there a better way?

dask_array_type is being used in pywgrib2_xr for type checking like:

if isinstance(u_var.data, dask_array_type):
    ...

[dcherian]

Well they shouldn't be doing that, this is private API. You'll have to edit that package to fix it.

[douglatornell]

Thanks, @dcherian! I was pretty sure that importing from xarray.core.pycompat was a bad thing to do. I'll try to figure out a better way of doing things for pywgrib2_xr and see if the maintainer will accept a PR.