issues

What happened?

The DataArray.rename API is inconsistent with Dataset.rename and the documentation does not make that obvious.

Unlike Dataset.rename, * A DataArray cannot be renamed using a keyword argument, but fails saying "[name] is not a variable or dimension in this dataset" (example A below). * Passing the new name as a positional argument, but with other keyword arguments fails with the statement "the first argument to .rename must be a dictionary" (example B below). * As a consequence, renaming the array as well as its dimension(s)/coordinate(s) requires two separate function calls, i.e. da.rename("newname").rename("dim_0"="x").

Examples

Start with an array, da, and a dataset, ds ```python

da = xr.DataArray( np.zeros((2,3)), name="alpha", coords={"x":range(2), "y":range(3)} ) da <xarray.DataArray 'alpha' (x: 2, y: 3)> array([[0., 0., 0.], [0., 0., 0.]]) Coordinates: * x (x) int64 0 1 * y (y) int64 0 1 2

ds = xr.Dataset({"alpha":da}) ds <xarray.Dataset> Dimensions: (x: 2, y: 3) Coordinates: * x (x) int64 0 1 * y (y) int64 0 1 2 Data variables: alpha (x, y) float64 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 ```

Dataset example ds.rename renames everything at once using keyword arguments ```python

ds.rename(x="i", y="j", alpha="beta") <xarray.Dataset> Dimensions: (i: 2, j: 3) Coordinates: * i (i) int64 0 1 * j (j) int64 0 1 2 Data variables: beta (i, j) float64 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 ```

Example A da.rename does not recognize the array's current name as a keyword and returns a confusing error message. ```python

da.rename(alpha="beta")

ValueError Traceback (most recent call last) <ipython-input-98-af366146dc6f> in <module> ----> 1 da.rename(alpha="beta", x="i")

xarray/core/dataarray.py in rename(self, new_name_or_name_dict, **names) 1842 ) 1843 name_dict = either_dict_or_kwargs(new_name_or_name_dict, names, "rename") -> 1844 dataset = self._to_temp_dataset().rename(name_dict) 1845 return self._from_temp_dataset(dataset) 1846 else:

xarray/core/dataset.py in rename(self, name_dict, **names) 3390 for k in name_dict.keys(): 3391 if k not in self and k not in self.dims: -> 3392 raise ValueError( 3393 f"cannot rename {k!r} because it is not a " 3394 "variable or dimension in this dataset"

ValueError: cannot rename 'alpha' because it is not a variable or dimension in this dataset ```

Example B da.rename will not change the name of the array as well as the dimension(s)/coordinate(s) names and emits an untrue error message, since the array cannot be renamed using a dict. ```python

da.rename("beta", x="i")

ValueError Traceback (most recent call last) <ipython-input-99-f90b078d6bd5> in <module> ----> 1 da.rename("beta", x="i")

xarray/core/dataarray.py in rename(self, new_name_or_name_dict, **names) 1841 Mapping[Hashable, Hashable], new_name_or_name_dict 1842 ) -> 1843 name_dict = either_dict_or_kwargs(new_name_or_name_dict, names, "rename") 1844 dataset = self._to_temp_dataset().rename(name_dict) 1845 return self._from_temp_dataset(dataset)

xarray/core/utils.py in either_dict_or_kwargs(pos_kwargs, kw_kwargs, func_name) 284 285 if not is_dict_like(pos_kwargs): --> 286 raise ValueError(f"the first argument to .{func_name} must be a dictionary") 287 if kw_kwargs: 288 raise ValueError(

ValueError: the first argument to .rename must be a dictionary ```

What did you expect to happen?

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Minimal Complete Verifiable Example

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Relevant log output

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Anything else we need to know?

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Environment

INSTALLED VERSIONS

commit: None python: 3.9.10 | packaged by conda-forge | (main, Feb 1 2022, 21:25:34) [Clang 11.1.0 ] python-bits: 64 OS: Darwin OS-release: 21.1.0 machine: arm64 processor: arm byteorder: little LC_ALL: None LANG: en_US.UTF-8 LOCALE: ('en_US', 'UTF-8') libhdf5: 1.12.1 libnetcdf: 4.8.1

xarray: 0.21.1 pandas: 1.3.5 numpy: 1.22.2 scipy: 1.7.1 netCDF4: 1.5.7 pydap: None h5netcdf: None h5py: None Nio: None zarr: None cftime: 1.5.2 nc_time_axis: None PseudoNetCDF: None rasterio: None cfgrib: None iris: None bottleneck: 1.3.2 dask: None distributed: None matplotlib: 3.5.0 cartopy: None seaborn: None numbagg: None fsspec: None cupy: None pint: None sparse: None setuptools: 60.7.1 pip: 22.0.3 conda: None pytest: None IPython: 7.29.0 sphinx: None