issue_comments: 839334583

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https://github.com/pydata/xarray/issues/5291#issuecomment-839334583 https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/5291 839334583 MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDgzOTMzNDU4Mw== 3924836 2021-05-12T00:31:28Z 2021-05-12T00:31:28Z MEMBER

Thanks @keewis I should have been more clear about the environment. I was recently going over the tutorial with someone and started with:

  1. conda create -n xarray-tutorial xarray running ds = xr.tutorial.load_dataset("air_temperature") --> ImportError: using the tutorial data requires pooch
  2. we install pooch and then hit: ValueError: cannot guess the engine, try passing one explicitly
  3. after consulting the docstring we then try ds = xr.tutorial.load_dataset("air_temperature", engine="netcdf4") and hit ValueError: unrecognized engine netcdf4 must be one of: ['store']
  4. being familiar with xarray we then installed netcdf4 into our environment and all is well.

I do think these error messages are not obvious to fix for new xarray users trying out the tutorial (especially # 3 above)

we could definitely improve the error message, though. Something like "unknown engine {engine}, please choose one of the installed engines: {engines}", maybe?

Yes. Perhaps with a link to docs with a list of engines? for the tutorial case specifically could also update the ImportError message to read ImportError: please install 'pooch' and 'netcdf4' to use xarray tutorial data?

 
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