html_url,issue_url,id,node_id,user,created_at,updated_at,author_association,body,reactions,performed_via_github_app,issue
https://github.com/pydata/xarray/issues/2149#issuecomment-389954770,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/2149,389954770,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDM4OTk1NDc3MA==,6213168,2018-05-17T17:57:07Z,2018-05-17T17:57:07Z,MEMBER,@shoyer I'm struggling to understand your change - help would be appreciated.,"{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,324040111
https://github.com/pydata/xarray/issues/2149#issuecomment-389947329,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/2149,389947329,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDM4OTk0NzMyOQ==,6213168,2018-05-17T17:33:06Z,2018-05-17T17:33:37Z,MEMBER,"@shoyer found the culprit: https://github.com/pydata/xarray/commit/3c8935e537e6ec05a83dbe372bfe45d88308d665
Still need to understand why if you set the encoding directly on the variable it works though.","{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,324040111
https://github.com/pydata/xarray/issues/2149#issuecomment-389885258,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/2149,389885258,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDM4OTg4NTI1OA==,6213168,2018-05-17T14:25:24Z,2018-05-17T14:25:24Z,MEMBER,"1. this is limited to dtype=S1. There's auto tests implemented for dtype=f4 and dtype=int16 (https://github.com/pydata/xarray/blob/master/xarray/tests/test_backends.py#L729-L756), and those work fine.
```
ds = xarray.Dataset({'x': [1, 2]})
ds.to_netcdf('test.nc', encoding={'x': {'dtype': 'f4'}})
```
2. the bug can be worked around by setting the dtype on the variable directly - for which there is an automated test specific for S1 (https://github.com/pydata/xarray/blob/master/xarray/tests/test_backends.py#L333-L343):
```
ds = xarray.Dataset({'x': ['foo', 'bar', 'baz']})
ds['x'].encoding['dtype'] = 'S1'
ds.to_netcdf('test.nc')
```","{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,324040111