Warning when importing Iris

[MHBalsmeier]

Hi,
the simple command

import iris

in python leads to

/home/ubuntu/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/iris/config.py:73: UserWarning: Ignoring config item 'Resources':'test_data_dir' (section:option) as '/home/h05/itwl/projects/git/iris-test-data/test_data' is not a valid directory path.
warnings.warn(msg.format(section, option, c_path))

What is this?

OS: Ubuntu 18.04
Python 3.6.9

[trexfeathers]

Hi @MHBalsmeier. This suggests an Iris installation from a branch/fork other than SciTools/iris master. Following any of the instructions in Installing Iris should definitely avoid this warning (same for the less recommended pip install scitools-iris). How did you install your copy of Iris?

[MHBalsmeier]

I did not want to use conda for various reasons, and it took me very long until I finally managed to sucessfully install iris. I wrote down all the steps that got me there in a gist:

https://gist.github.com/MHBalsmeier/a586426026aaee186edfbf1995018a2c

I applied this on various Ubuntu 20 machines / VMs and it worked fine, now I had to install it on a Ubuntu 18 machine and the warning came. It still works, I only wonder why this warning shows up.

[trexfeathers]

Thanks for the detail @MHBalsmeier. From your description I'm at a loss to explain how this has happened, but here's the fix anyway:

If you open /home/ubuntu/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/iris/etc/site.cfg, I expect you will find this line, which is referencing someone else's local file:

test_data_dir = /home/h05/itwl/projects/git/iris-test-data/test_data

If you don't need to run any of Iris' test that require iris-test-data (I'm guessing so from your gist):
Just delete the offending line.

If you do need to use iris-test-data:
Delete the offending line, then...
Follow the recommended steps under Running the tests.

[MHBalsmeier]

Thanks, this worked.

You mentioned that pip install scitools-iris is not recommended. As you see in my gist, I am doing pip install --user scitools-iris as well as later python setup.py build. Is the pip install unnecessary?

[trexfeathers]

Is the pip install unnecessary?

I think so. My main uncertainty is how pip or setup.py handle dependencies; they both have access to the necessary dependency information (the individual .txt files in the requirements/ directory), but I can't be sure if pip is doing anything extra beyond what setup.py does. I suggest trying a fresh install without the pip step, and see if the core dependencies (see directory linked above) get installed anyway.

[trexfeathers]

... of course for your use case the dependency management is handled anyway so I think you're safe to only use setup.py.

[MHBalsmeier]

Okay, thanks, I'll try this next time.