Mostly restore netcdf backend behavior with URLs (#10931)

Co-authored-by: Deepak Cherian <dcherian@users.noreply.github.com>

Author: ianhi

doc/whats-new.rst

@@ -33,6 +33,12 @@ Deprecations
 
 Bug Fixes
 ~~~~~~~~~
+
+- The NetCDF4 backend will now claim to be able to read any URL except for one that contains
+  the substring zarr. This restores backward compatibility after
+  :pull:`10804` broke workflows that relied on ``xr.open_dataset("http://...")``
+  (:pull:`10931`).
+  By `Ian Hunt-Isaak <https://github.com/ianhi>`_.
 - Always normalize slices when indexing ``LazilyIndexedArray`` instances (:issue:`10941`, :pull:`10948`).
   By `Justus Magin <https://github.com/keewis>`_.
 

xarray/backends/common.py

@@ -849,3 +849,37 @@ def open_groups_as_dict(
 
 # mapping of engine name to (module name, BackendEntrypoint Class)
 BACKEND_ENTRYPOINTS: dict[str, tuple[str | None, type[BackendEntrypoint]]] = {}
+
+
+def _is_likely_dap_url(url: str) -> bool:
+    """
+    Determines if a URL is likely an OPeNDAP (DAP) endpoint based on
+    known protocols, server software path patterns, and file extensions.
+
+    Parameters
+    ----------
+    url : str
+
+    Returns
+    -------
+        True if the URL matches common DAP patterns, False otherwise.
+    """
+    if not url:
+        return False
+
+    url_lower = url.lower()
+
+    # For remote URIs, check for DAP server software path patterns
+    if is_remote_uri(url_lower):
+        dap_path_patterns = (
+            "/dodsc/",  # THREDDS Data Server (TDS) DAP endpoint (case-insensitive)
+            "/dods/",  # GrADS Data Server (GDS) DAP endpoint
+            "/opendap/",  # Generic OPeNDAP/Hyrax server
+            "/erddap/",  # ERDDAP data server
+            "/dap2/",  # Explicit DAP2 version in path
+            "/dap4/",  # Explicit DAP4 version in path
+            "/dap/",
+        )
+        return any(pattern in url_lower for pattern in dap_path_patterns)
+
+    return False

xarray/backends/netCDF4_.py

@@ -715,10 +715,19 @@ def _has_netcdf_ext(path: str | os.PathLike, is_remote: bool = False) -> bool:
             _, ext = os.path.splitext(path)
             return ext in {".nc", ".nc4", ".cdf"}
 
-        if isinstance(filename_or_obj, str) and is_remote_uri(filename_or_obj):
-            # For remote URIs, check extension (accounting for query params/fragments)
-            # Remote netcdf-c can handle both regular URLs and DAP URLs
-            return _has_netcdf_ext(filename_or_obj, is_remote=True)
+        if isinstance(filename_or_obj, str):
+            if is_remote_uri(filename_or_obj):
+                # For remote URIs, check extension (accounting for query params/fragments)
+                # Remote netcdf-c can handle both regular URLs and DAP URLs
+                if _has_netcdf_ext(filename_or_obj, is_remote=True):
+                    return True
+                elif "zarr" in filename_or_obj.lower():
+                    return False
+                # return true for non-zarr URLs so we don't have a breaking change for people relying on this
+                # netcdf backend guessing true for all remote sources.
+                # TODO: emit a warning here about deprecation of this behavior
+                # https://github.com/pydata/xarray/pull/10931
+                return True
 
         if isinstance(filename_or_obj, str | os.PathLike):
             # For local paths, check magic number first, then extension

xarray/backends/pydap_.py

@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@
     BackendArray,
     BackendEntrypoint,
     T_PathFileOrDataStore,
+    _is_likely_dap_url,
     _normalize_path,
     datatree_from_dict_with_io_cleanup,
     robust_getitem,
@@ -22,7 +23,6 @@
     Frozen,
     FrozenDict,
     close_on_error,
-    is_remote_uri,
 )
 from xarray.core.variable import Variable
 from xarray.namedarray.pycompat import integer_types
@@ -252,23 +252,7 @@ class PydapBackendEntrypoint(BackendEntrypoint):
     def guess_can_open(self, filename_or_obj: T_PathFileOrDataStore) -> bool:
         if not isinstance(filename_or_obj, str):
             return False
-
-        # Check for explicit DAP protocol indicators:
-        # 1. DAP scheme: dap2:// or dap4:// (case-insensitive, may not be recognized by is_remote_uri)
-        # 2. Remote URI with /dap2/ or /dap4/ in URL path (case-insensitive)
-        # Note: We intentionally do NOT check for .dap suffix as that would match
-        # file extensions like .dap which trigger downloads of binary data
-        url_lower = filename_or_obj.lower()
-        if url_lower.startswith(("dap2://", "dap4://")):
-            return True
-
-        # For standard remote URIs, check for DAP indicators in path
-        if is_remote_uri(filename_or_obj):
-            return (
-                "/dap2/" in url_lower or "/dap4/" in url_lower or "/dodsC/" in url_lower
-            )
-
-        return False
+        return _is_likely_dap_url(filename_or_obj)
 
     def open_dataset(
         self,

xarray/tests/test_backends.py

@@ -77,7 +77,6 @@
     has_h5netcdf_1_4_0_or_above,
     has_netCDF4,
     has_numpy_2,
-    has_pydap,
     has_scipy,
     has_zarr,
     has_zarr_v3,
@@ -7294,9 +7293,9 @@ def test_netcdf4_entrypoint(tmp_path: Path) -> None:
     _check_guess_can_open_and_open(entrypoint, path, engine="netcdf4", expected=ds)
     _check_guess_can_open_and_open(entrypoint, str(path), engine="netcdf4", expected=ds)
 
-    # Remote URLs without extensions are no longer claimed (stricter detection)
-    assert not entrypoint.guess_can_open("http://something/remote")
-    # Remote URLs with netCDF extensions are claimed
+    # Remote URLs without extensions return True (backward compatibility)
+    assert entrypoint.guess_can_open("http://something/remote")
+    # Remote URLs with netCDF extensions are also claimed
     assert entrypoint.guess_can_open("http://something/remote.nc")
     assert entrypoint.guess_can_open("something-local.nc")
     assert entrypoint.guess_can_open("something-local.nc4")
@@ -7440,15 +7439,22 @@ def test_remote_url_backend_auto_detection() -> None:
             f"URL {url!r} should select {expected_backend!r} but got {engine!r}"
         )
 
-    # DAP URLs without extensions - pydap wins if available, netcdf4 otherwise
-    # When pydap is not installed, netCDF4 should handle these DAP URLs
-    expected_dap_backend = "pydap" if has_pydap else "netcdf4"
+    # DAP URLs - netcdf4 should handle these (it comes first in backend order)
+    # Both netcdf4 and pydap can open DAP URLs, but netcdf4 has priority
+    expected_dap_backend = "netcdf4"
     dap_urls = [
+        # Explicit DAP protocol schemes
         "dap2://opendap.earthdata.nasa.gov/collections/dataset",
         "dap4://opendap.earthdata.nasa.gov/collections/dataset",
+        "dap://example.com/dataset",
         "DAP2://example.com/dataset",  # uppercase scheme
         "DAP4://example.com/dataset",  # uppercase scheme
+        # DAP path indicators
         "https://example.com/services/DAP2/dataset",  # uppercase in path
+        "http://test.opendap.org/opendap/data/nc/file.nc",  # /opendap/ path
+        "https://coastwatch.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/griddap/erdMH1chla8day",  # ERDDAP
+        "http://thredds.ucar.edu/thredds/dodsC/grib/NCEP/GFS/",  # THREDDS dodsC
+        "https://disc2.gesdisc.eosdis.nasa.gov/dods/TRMM_3B42",  # GrADS /dods/
     ]
 
     for url in dap_urls:
@@ -7457,20 +7463,16 @@ def test_remote_url_backend_auto_detection() -> None:
             f"URL {url!r} should select {expected_dap_backend!r} but got {engine!r}"
         )
 
-    # URLs that should raise ValueError (no backend can open them)
-    invalid_urls = [
-        "http://test.opendap.org/opendap/data/nc/coads_climatology.nc.dap",  # .dap suffix
-        "https://example.com/data.dap",  # .dap suffix
-        "http://opendap.example.com/data",  # no extension, no DAP indicators
-        "https://test.opendap.org/dataset",  # no extension, no DAP indicators
+    # URLs with .dap suffix are claimed by netcdf4 (backward compatibility fallback)
+    # Note: .dap suffix is intentionally NOT recognized as a DAP dataset URL
+    fallback_urls = [
+        ("http://test.opendap.org/opendap/data/nc/coads_climatology.nc.dap", "netcdf4"),
+        ("https://example.com/data.dap", "netcdf4"),
     ]
 
-    for url in invalid_urls:
-        with pytest.raises(
-            ValueError,
-            match=r"did not find a match in any of xarray's currently installed IO backends",
-        ):
-            guess_engine(url)
+    for url, expected_backend in fallback_urls:
+        engine = guess_engine(url)
+        assert engine == expected_backend
 
 
 @requires_netCDF4