[Feature]: Raise warning when writing data with unreleased version of schema

[rly]

What would you like to see added to PyNWB?

I came across a (draft) dandiset with cached core schema version "2.6.0-alpha". This is a development/unreleased version of the schema, and probably results from the author using dev branches of nwb-schema and/or pynwb. NWB files should not be released with these unreleased schema because it makes debugging difficult (that version string can correspond to multiple specs/commits), and these schema may not be compatible with pynwb due to later fixes in the schema before the official release.

Is your feature request related to a problem?

^

What solution would you like?

I think we should raise a warning if a user writes an NWB file with an unreleased version of the schema or even loads an unreleased version of the schema. Alternatively, we could put this in NWB Inspector, but I think we can and should catch it on or before write.

Do you have any interest in helping implement the feature?

Yes.

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct
• Have you checked the Contributing document?
• Have you ensured this change was not already requested?

[CodyCBakerPhD]

As you found this on DANDI, are you proposing too that there should be something preventing upload of such files to the archive?

A simple warning on the PyNWB side would not prevent that, but a new inspector check could

[rly]

Good point. I think we should prevent upload of such files to DANDI. @bendichter @oruebel what do you think?

[oruebel]

The ultimate policy decision is up to DANDI, but I agree that publishing data with alpha versions of the schema should be either blocked or at least raise a warning in the inspection phase since we can't guarantee support for alpha versions.

[CodyCBakerPhD]

The ultimate policy decision is up to DANDI, but I agree that publishing data with alpha versions of the schema should be either blocked or at least raise a warning in the inspection phase since we can't guarantee support for alpha versions.

cc: @yarikoptic @satra what do you guys think?

[yarikoptic]

AFAIK ATM we do not impose any limits on versions of nwb schema in the files really... I agree indeed it could be at least some kind of a WARNING level annotation by nwb inspector... and I would not mind ERROR level for "dandi" profile to avoid cases of unloadable files the future.

[CodyCBakerPhD]

OK, opened NeurodataWithoutBorders/nwbinspector#432

Leaving this one here so there can be a PyNWB warning in the event more generally

[rly]

Thanks @CodyCBakerPhD .

I just learned that when we released NWB schema 2.6.0, we (I) forgot to change the version string from "2.6.0-alpha" to "2.6.0" in the nwb.namespace.yaml file. It was correctly updated in nwb.file.yaml though (in NWBFile group spec > attribute "nwb_version"). So please note that if you are troubleshooting these files.

When checking the version string, we can add exceptions for "2.6.0-alpha", "2.0b" and any other unusual released version strings. Or we can apply this check only for schema released after now, i.e. x.y.z >= 2.7.0. The former should not be hard to do. I'll take a crack at it next week.

[rly]

Update: I am not going to get to this this week or month. If someone else wants to take a crack at it, please feel free.