remove old string logic

Author: d-v-b

src/zarr/codecs/vlen_utf8.py

@@ -10,7 +10,6 @@
 from zarr.abc.codec import ArrayBytesCodec
 from zarr.core.buffer import Buffer, NDBuffer
 from zarr.core.common import JSON, parse_named_configuration
-from zarr.core.strings import cast_to_string_dtype
 from zarr.registry import register_codec
 
 if TYPE_CHECKING:
@@ -49,6 +48,7 @@ def to_dict(self) -> dict[str, JSON]:
     def evolve_from_array_spec(self, array_spec: ArraySpec) -> Self:
         return self
 
+    # TODO: expand the tests for this function
     async def _decode_single(
         self,
         chunk_bytes: Buffer,
@@ -60,8 +60,7 @@ async def _decode_single(
         decoded = _vlen_utf8_codec.decode(raw_bytes)
         assert decoded.dtype == np.object_
         decoded.shape = chunk_spec.shape
-        # coming out of the code, we know this is safe, so don't issue a warning
-        as_string_dtype = cast_to_string_dtype(decoded, safe=True)
+        as_string_dtype = decoded.astype(chunk_spec.dtype.to_dtype(), copy=False)
         return chunk_spec.prototype.nd_buffer.from_numpy_array(as_string_dtype)
 
     async def _encode_single(

src/zarr/core/strings.py

@@ -9,8 +9,8 @@
 from zarr.abc.store import Store
 from zarr.codecs import ZstdCodec
 from zarr.core.dtype import get_data_type_from_native_dtype
+from zarr.core.dtype.npy.string import _NUMPY_SUPPORTS_VLEN_STRING
 from zarr.core.metadata.v3 import ArrayV3Metadata
-from zarr.core.strings import _NUMPY_SUPPORTS_VLEN_STRING
 from zarr.storage import StorePath
 
 numpy_str_dtypes: list[type | str | None] = [None, str, "str", np.dtypes.StrDType, "S", "U"]

tests/test_codecs/test_vlen.py

@@ -12,14 +12,14 @@
 from zarr.core.chunk_key_encodings import DefaultChunkKeyEncoding, V2ChunkKeyEncoding
 from zarr.core.config import config
 from zarr.core.dtype import get_data_type_from_native_dtype
+from zarr.core.dtype.npy.string import _NUMPY_SUPPORTS_VLEN_STRING
 from zarr.core.dtype.npy.time import DateTime64
 from zarr.core.group import GroupMetadata, parse_node_type
 from zarr.core.metadata.v3 import (
     ArrayV3Metadata,
     parse_dimension_names,
     parse_zarr_format,
 )
-from zarr.core.strings import _NUMPY_SUPPORTS_VLEN_STRING
 from zarr.errors import MetadataValidationError
 
 if TYPE_CHECKING: