How can I configure item output paths with additional subdirectories?

[sgxl]

Hi maintainers,

I'm trying to customize the output directory structure when saving a STAC catalog using PySTAC. I have a pystac.Item object that I want to save under a specific path format likecatalog/collection_id/item_id/year-month/itemxx.json

I know that I can manually set the self HREF of the item via stac_item.set_self_href(...), and then add it to a collection and catalog like so:

stac_item.set_self_href(ofile_stac_item)

collection.add_item(stac_item)
collection.update_extent_from_items()

catalog.add_children([collection])
catalog.normalize_hrefs(stac_disk_path_base)    # stac_disk_path_base is the root path of the catalog
catalog.save(dest_href=stac_disk_path_base, catalog_type=pystac.CatalogType.SELF_CONTAINED)

While this correctly sets the self HREF for the item, the actual file is still being written to the default location:catalog/collection_id/item_id/xxx.json

It seems that even after calling set_self_href, the final output path used by save() doesn't respect the full custom path I provided (including the year-month subdirectory).

Is there currently a way to fully control the output directory structure during normalize_hrefs or save, especially to include additional path components such as year/month? If not, would this be a reasonable feature to request?

Thanks in advance for any guidance or suggestions.

Best regards,
Calf Lai

[jsignell]

It sounds like you need to be setting the catalog layout (https://pystac.readthedocs.io/en/stable/api.html#catalog-layout), maybe using the CustomLayoutStrategy so that you have more control over where the files are written. My understanding is the href doesn't really control where the files are written -- this might seem weird, but it makes more sense if you consider that the href is often a full url.

[sgxl]

It sounds like you need to be setting the catalog layout (https://pystac.readthedocs.io/en/stable/api.html#catalog-layout), maybe using the CustomLayoutStrategy so that you have more control over where the files are written. My understanding is the href doesn't really control where the files are written -- this might seem weird, but it makes more sense if you consider that the href is often a full url.

Thank you very much for your patient reply, I will try it.