Butler v24.0.0 2022-08-26

New Features

  • Support LSST-style visit definitions where a single exposure is part of a set of related exposures all taken with the same acquisition command. Each exposure knows the “visit” it is part of.

    • Modify the exposure dimension record to include seq_start and seq_end metadata.
    • Modify visit record to include a seq_num field.
    • Remove visit_system dimension and add visit_system_membership record to allow a visit to be associated with multiple visit systems. (DM-30948)

  • butler export-calibs now takes a --transfer option to control how data are exported (use direct to do in-place export) and a --datasets option to limit the dataset types to be exported. It also now takes a default collections parameter (all calibration collections). (DM-32061)

  • Iterables returned from registry methods queryDataIds and queryDimensionRecords have two new methods - order_by and limit. (DM-32403)

  • Builds using setuptools now calculate versions from the Git repository, including the use of alpha releases for those associated with weekly tags. (DM-32408)

  • Butler can now support lookup of repositories by label if the user environment is correctly configured. This is done using the new get_repo_uri() and get_known_repos() APIs. (DM-32491)

  • Add a butler command line command called butler remove-collections that can remove non-RUN collections. (DM-32687)

  • Add a butler command line command called butler remove-runs that can remove RUN collections and contained datasets. (DM-32831)

  • It is now possible to register type conversion functions with storage classes. This can allow a dataset type definition to change storage class in the registry whilst allowing datasets that have already been serialized using one python type to be returned using the new python type. The storageClasses.yaml definitions can now look like:

    TaskMetadata:
  pytype: lsst.pipe.base.TaskMetadata
  converters:
    lsst.daf.base.PropertySet: lsst.pipe.base.TaskMetadata.from_metadata

    Declares that if a TaskMetadata is expected then a PropertySet can be converted to the correct python type. (DM-32883)

  • Dimension record imports now ignore conflicts (without checking for consistency) instead of failing. (DM-33148)

  • Storage class converters can now also be used on put. (DM-33155)

  • If a DatasetType has been constructed that differs from the registry definition, but in a way that is compatible through StorageClass conversion, then using that in a lsst.daf.butler.Butler.get() call will return a python type that matches the user-specified StorageClass instead of the internal python type. (DM-33303)

  • The dataset ID can now be used in a file template for datastore (using {id}). (DM-33414)

  • Add Registry.getCollectionParentChains to find the CHAINED collections that another collection belongs to. (DM-33643)

  • Added has_simulated to the exposure record to indicate that some content of this exposure was simulated. (DM-33728)

  • The command-line tooling has changed how it sets the default logger when using --log-level. Now only the default logger(s) (lsst and the colon-separated values stored in the $DAF_BUTLER_ROOT_LOGGER) will be affected by using --log-level without a specific logger name. By default only this default logger will be set to INFO log level and all other loggers will remain as WARNING. Use --log-level '.=level' to change the root logger (this will not change the default logger level and so an additional call to --log-level DEBUG may be needed to turn on debugging for all loggers). (DM-33809)

  • Added azimuth to the exposure and visit records. (DM-33859)

  • If repository aliases have been defined for the site they can now be used in place of the Butler repository URI in both the Butler constructor and command-line tools. (DM-33870)

    • Added visit_system to instrument record and allowed it to be used as a tie breaker in dataset determination if a dataId is given using seq_num and day_obs and it matches multiple visits.
    • Modify export YAML format to include the dimension universe version and namespace.
    • Allow export files with older visit definitions to be read (this does not fill in the new metadata records).
    • DimensionUniverse now supports the in operator to check if a dimension is part of the universe. (DM-33942)
    • Added a definition for using healpix in skypix definitions.
    • Change dimension universe caching to support a namespace in addition to a version number. (DM-33946)

  • Added a formatter for lsst.utils.packages.Packages Python types in lsst.daf.butler.formatters.packages.PackagesFormatter. (DM-34105)

  • Added an optimization that speeds up butler query-datasets when using --show-uri. (DM-35120)

API Changes

  • Many internal utilities from lsst.daf.butler.core.utils have been relocated to the lsst.utils package. (DM-31722)
  • The ButlerURI class has now been removed from this package. It now exists as lsst.resources.ResourcePath. All code should be modified to use the new class name. (DM-31723)
  • lsst.daf.butler.Registry.registerRun and lsst.daf.butler.Registry.registerCollection now return a Booelan indicating whether the collection was created or already existed. (DM-31976)
  • A new optional parameter, record_validation_info has been added to ingest (and related datastore APIs) to allow the caller to declare that file attributes such as the file size or checksum should not be recorded. This can be useful if the file is being monitored by an external system or it is known that the file might be compressed in-place after ingestion. (DM-33086)
  • Added a new DatasetType.is_compatible_with method. This method determines if two dataset types are compatible with each other, taking into account whether the storage classes allow type conversion. (DM-33278)
  • The run parameter has been removed from Butler method lsst.daf.butler.Butler.pruneDatasets. It was never used in Butler implementation, client code should simply remove it. (DM-33488)
  • Registry methods now raise exceptions belonging to a class hierarchy rooted at lsst.daf.butler.registry.RegistryError. See also Error handling with Registry methods for details. (DM-33600)
  • Added DatasetType.storageClass_name property to allow the name of the storage class to be retrieved without requiring that the storage class exists. This is possible if people have used local storage class definitions or a test DatasetType was created temporarily. (DM-34460)

Bug Fixes

  • butler export-calibs can now copy files that require the use of a file template (for example if a direct URI was stored in datastore) with metadata records. File templates that use metadata records now complain if the record is not attached to the DatasetRef. (DM-32061)
  • Make it possible to run queryDimensionRecords while constraining on the existence of a dataset whose dimensions are not a subset of the record element’s dependencies (e.g. raw and exposure). (DM-32454)
  • Butler constructor can now take a os.PathLike object when the butler.yaml is not included in the path. (DM-32467)
  • In the butler presets file (used by the --@ option), use option names that match the butler CLI command option names (without leading dashes). Fail if option names used in the presets file do not match options for the current butler command. (DM-32986)
  • The butler CLI command remove-runs can now unlink RUN collections from parent CHAINED collections. (DM-33619)
  • Improves butler query-collections:
    • TABLE output formatting is easier to read.
    • Adds INVERSE modes for TABLE and TREE output, to view CHAINED parent(s) of collections (non-INVERSE lists children of CHAINED collections).
    • Sorts datasets before printing them. (DM-33902)
  • Fix garbled printing of raw-byte hashes in query-dimension-records. (DM-34007)
  • The automatic addition of butler.yaml to the Butler configuration URI now also happens when a ResourcePath instance is given. (DM-34172)
  • Fix handling of “doomed” (known to return no results even before execution) follow-up queries for datasets. This frequently manifested as a KeyError with a message about dataset type registration during QuantumGraph generation. (DM-34202)
  • Fix queryDataIds bug involving dataset constraints with no dimensions. (DM-34247)
  • The click.Path API changed, change from ordered arguments to keyword arguments when calling it. (DM-34261)
  • Fix queryCollections bug in which children of chained collections were being alphabetically sorted instead of ordered consistently with the order in which they would be searched. (DM-34328)
  • Fixes the bug introduced in DM-33489 (appeared in w_2022_15) which causes not-NULL constraint violation for datastore component column. (DM-34375)
  • Fixes an issue where the command line tools were caching argument and option values but not separating option names from option values correctly in some cases. (DM-34812)

Other Changes and Additions

  • Add a NOT NULL constraint to dimension implied dependency columns.

    NULL values in these columns already cause the query system to misbehave. (DM-21840)

  • Update parquet writing to use default per-column compression. (DM-31963)

  • Tidy up remove-runs subcommand confirmation report by sorting dataset types and filtering out those with no datasets in the collections to be deleted. (DM-33584)

  • The constraints on collection names have been relaxed. Previously collection names were limited to ASCII alphanumeric characters plus a limited selection of symbols (directory separator, @-sign). Now all unicode alphanumerics can be used along with emoji. (DM-33999)

  • File datastore now always writes a temporary file and renames it even for local file system datastores. This minimizes the risk of a corrupt file being written if the process writing the file is killed at the wrong time. (DM-35458)

An API Removal or Deprecation

  • The butler prune-collections command line command is now deprecated. Please consider using remove-collections or remove-runs instead. Will be removed after v24. (DM-32499)
  • All support for reading and writing Filter objects has been removed. The old filter component for exposures has been removed, and replaced with a new filter component backed by FilterLabel. It functions identically to the filterLabel component, which has been deprecated. (DM-27177)

Butler v23.0.0 2021-12-10

New Features

  • Add ability to cache datasets locally when using a remote file store. This can significantly improve performance when retrieving components from a dataset. (DM-13365)

  • Add a new butler retrieve-artifacts command to copy file artifacts from a Butler datastore. (DM-27241)

  • Add butler transfer-datasets command-line tool and associated Butler.transfer_from() API.

    This can be used to transfer datasets between different butlers, with the caveat that dimensions and dataset types must be pre-defined in the receiving butler repository. (DM-28650)

  • Add amp parameter to the Exposure StorageClass, allowing single-amplifier subimage reads. (DM-29370)

  • Add new butler collection-chain subcommand for creating collection chains from the command line. (DM-30373)

  • Add butler ingest-files subcommand to simplify ingest of any external file. (DM-30935)

    • Add class representing a collection of log records (ButlerLogRecords).
    • Allow this class to be stored and retrieved from a Butler datastore.
    • Add special log handler to allow JSON log records to be stored.
    • Add --log-file option to command lines to redirect log output to file.
    • Add --no-log-tty to disable log output to terminal. (DM-30977)

  • Registry methods that previously could raise an exception when searching in calibrations collections now have an improved logic that skip those collections if they were not given explicitly but only appeared in chained collections. (DM-31337)

  • Add a confirmation step to butler prune-collection to help prevent accidental removal of collections. (DM-31366)

  • Add butler register-dataset-type command to register a new dataset type. (DM-31367)

  • Use cached summary information to simplify queries involving datasets and provide better diagnostics when those queries yield no results. (DM-31583)

  • Add a new butler export-calibs command to copy calibrations and write an export.yaml document from a Butler datastore. (DM-31596)

  • Support rewriting of dataId containing dimension records such as day_obs and seq_num in butler.put(). This matches the behavior of butler.get(). (DM-31623)

  • Add --log-label option to butler command to allow extra information to be injected into the log record. (DM-31884)

    • The Butler.transfer_from method no longer registers new dataset types by default.
    • Add the related option --register-dataset-types to the butler transfer-datasets subcommand. (DM-31976)

  • Support UUIDs as the primary keys in registry and allow for reproducible UUIDs.

    This change will significantly simplify transferring of data between butler repositories. (DM-29196)

  • Allow registry methods such as queryDatasets to use a glob-style string when specifying collection or dataset type names. (DM-30200)

  • Add support for updating and replacing dimension records. (DM-30866)

API Changes

  • A new method Datastore.knows() has been added to allow a user to ask the datastore whether it knows about a specific dataset but without requiring a check to see if the artifact itself exists. Use Datastore.exists() to check that the datastore knows about a dataset and the artifact exists. (DM-30335)

Bug Fixes

  • Fix handling of ingest_date timestamps.

    Previously there was an inconsistency between ingest_date database-native UTC handling and astropy Time used for time literals which resulted in 37 second difference. This updates makes consistent use of database-native time functions to resolve this issue. (DM-30124)

  • Fix butler repository creation when a seed config has specified a registry manager override.

    Previously only that manager was recorded rather than the full set. We always require a full set to be recorded to prevent breakage of a butler when a default changes. (DM-30372)

  • Stop writing a temporary datastore cache directory every time a Butler object was instantiated. Now only create one when one is requested. (DM-30743)

  • Fix Butler.transfer_from() such that it registers any missing dataset types and also skips any datasets that do not have associated datastore artifacts. (DM-30784)

  • Add support for click 8.0. (DM-30855)

  • Replace UNION ALL with UNION for subqueries for simpler query plans. (DM-31429)

  • Fix parquet formatter error when reading tables with no indices.

    Previously, this would cause butler.get to fail to read valid parquet tables. (DM-31700)

  • Fix problem in ButlerURI where transferring a file from one URI to another would overwrite the existing file even if they were the same actual file (for example because of soft links in the directory hierarchy). (DM-31826)

Performance Enhancement

  • Make collection and dataset pruning significantly more efficient. (DM-30140)
  • Add indexes to make certain spatial join queries much more efficient. (DM-31548)
  • Made 20x speed improvement for Butler.transfer_from. The main slow down is asking the datastore whether a file artifact exists. This is now parallelized and the result is cached for later. (DM-31785)
  • Minor efficiency improvements when accessing lsst.daf.butler.Config hierarchies. (DM-32305)
  • FileDatastore: Improve removing of datasets from the trash by at least a factor of 10. (DM-29849)

Other Changes and Additions

  • Enable serialization of DatasetRef and related classes to JSON format. (DM-28678)

  • ButlerURI http schemes can now handle non-WebDAV endpoints. Warnings are only issued if WebDAV functionality is requested. (DM-29708)

  • Switch logging such that all logging messages are now forwarded to Python logging from lsst.log. Previously all Python logging messages were being forwarded to lsst.log. (DM-31120)

  • Add formatter and storageClass information for FocalPlaneBackground. (DM-22534)

  • Add formatter and storageClass information for IsrCalib. (DM-29531)

  • Change release note creation to use [Towncrier](https://towncrier.readthedocs.io/en/actual-freaking-docs/index.html). (DM-30291)

  • Add a Butler configuration for an execution butler that has pre-defined registry entries but no datastore records.

    The Butler.put() will return the pre-existing dataset ref but will still fail if a datastore record is found. (DM-30335)

  • If an unrecognized dimension is used as a look up key in a configuration file (using the + syntax) a warning is used suggesting a possible typo rather than a confusing KeyError. This is no longer a fatal error and the key will be treated as a name. (DM-30685)

  • Add split transfer mode that can be used when some files are inside the datastore and some files are outside the datastore. This is equivalent to using None and direct mode dynamically. (DM-31251)

Butler v22.0 2021-04-01

New Features

  • A Butler instance can now be configured with dataId defaults such as an instrument or skymap. [DM-27153]
  • Add butler prune-datasets command. [DM-26689]
  • Add butler query-dimension-records command [DM-27344]
  • Add --unlink option to butler prune-collection command. [DM-28857]
  • Add progress reporting option for long-lived commands. [DM-28964]
  • Add butler associate command to add existing datasets to a tagged collection. [DM-26688]
  • Add officially-supported JSON serialization for core Butler classes. [DM-28314]
  • Allow butler.get() to support dimension record values such as exposure observing day or detector name in the dataID. [DM-27152]
  • Add “direct” ingest mode to allow a file to be ingested retaining the full path to the original file. [DM-27478]

Bug Fixes

  • Fix temporal queries and clarify Timespan behavior. [DM-27985]

Other Changes and Additions

  • Make ButlerURI class immutable. [DM-29073]
  • Add ButlerURI.findFileResources method to walk the directory tree and return matching files. [DM-29011]
  • Improve infrastructure for handling test repositories. [DM-23862]

Butler Datastores

New Features

  • Implement basic file caching for use with remote datastores. [DM-29383]
  • Require that a DataId always be available to a Formatter. This allows formatters to do a consistency check such as comparing the physical filter in a dataId with that read from a file. [DM-28583]
  • Add special mode to datastore to instruct it to ignore registry on get. This is useful for Execution Butlers where registry knows in advance about all datasets but datastore does not. [DM-28648]
  • Add forget method to instruct datastore to remove all knowledge of a dataset without deleting the file artifact. [DM-29106]

Butler Registry

New Features

  • Avoid long-lived connections to database. [DM-26302]
  • Add option to flatten when setting a collection chain. [DM-29203]