use `FilePathsBase.Path` in `Onda.load`?

[ericphanson]

Onda.load could automatically apply the Path constructor to the file_path field of a signal to load, to support seamless loading of s3 objects whose paths have been serialized as strings. Onda would not need to depend on AWS, AWSS3, etc, just on FilePathsBase, thanks to the magic of type piracy.

julia> using FilePathsBase

julia> typeof(Path("s3://hello"))
PosixPath

julia> using AWSS3

julia> typeof(Path("s3://hello"))
S3Path{AWS.AWSConfig}

Alternatively, we could fix serialization of S3Paths in AWSS3 (which would need to add a dependency on ArrowTypes once https://github.com/JuliaData/Arrow.jl/issues/209 is resolved) and then use those in signals to load data from s3 without any changes needed to Onda. Alternatively, if don't want to add FilePathsBase here, and AWSS3 doesn't want to add ArrowTypes, we could just pirate methods of toarrow on S3Paths in the code that calls Onda.load and Onda.store (i.e. in neither package).

[jrevels]

I'm fine with adding FilePathsBase.Path as you mentioned, as long as it's pure-value-add feature that non-FilePaths users don't have to think about, i.e. the actual requirements here don't change

I'm assuming the Path constructor has an identity fallback of some sort that would facilitate this?

[ericphanson]

I'm assuming the Path constructor has an identity fallback of some sort that would facilitate this?

I don't think so... FilePathsBase has a global constant PATH_TYPES = Type[] and packages like AWSS3 populate this with the register function. FilePathsBase itself does register(Sys.iswindows() ? WindowsPath : PosixPath). So by default, there is only one path in PATH_TYPES and it is not generic. Then when you do Path(str), it tryparses each path type in turn and chooses the first one.

So... I think the answer is then we shouldn't do this.