issue_comments

@shoyer is this something I should be working on? I am happy to, just don't know how this normally goes.

@shoyer that makes sense. @kwilcox, so times should be strings if decode_times=False? Should I do a new pull request?

@kwilcox, I hadn't thought much about this. I guess the intention was to have only python scalars/lists, but I don't know if we want to get in the business of converting attribute values since there are so many options for what they could be. What do you think makes the most sense?

Done!

I made the docs locally and they look how I expect.

Ok, so I merged with the current master and added documentation and a what's-new note. I hope I did that right. @shoyer I am really new to contributing so thanks for all your help. Let me know if anything needs changing.

Ok, I made the little changes. I will start working on the docs.

@shoyer I think I have done all the things that you mentioned and I added DataArray.from_dict().

Ok, I made the changes that you suggested. I still need to work on the from_dict validation to prompt users to give more specific dicts.

Ok, I wrote a Dataset.from_dict class method. I imagine the DataArray one will look pretty similar, so I just wanted to see what you think. The main issue that I see is that time doesn't round trip. I wasn't sure if the user should need to set a parse_date flag with the dim name or something or whether the function should try to convert to time any dim with the string 'time' in it?

``` @classmethod def from_dict(cls, d): """ Convert a dictionary into an xarray.Dataset. """ obj = cls()

    dims=OrderedDict([(k, d['coords'][k]) for k in d['dims']])
    for dim, dim_d in dims.items():
        obj[dim] = (dim_d['dims'], dim_d['data'], dim_d['attrs'])

    for var, var_d in d['data_vars'].items():
        obj[var] = (var_d['dims'], var_d['data'], var_d['attrs'])

    # what it coords aren't dims?
    coords = (set(d['coords'].keys()) - set(d['dims']))
    for coord in coords:
        coord_d = d['coords'][coord]
        obj[coord] = (coord_d['dims'], coord_d['data'], coord_d['attrs'])
    obj = obj.set_coords(coords)

    obj.attrs.update(d['attrs'])

    return(obj)

```

Regarding unit tests, I haven't ever written one before but I would be happy to try (I know they are an important part of good development).

Ok, I have committed a first pass at unit tests. I purposefully wrote a failing time test.