ENH: allow tables to be specified w/o using 'table' under the group node (only for GenericTable)

Author: jreback

pandas/io/pytables.py

@@ -611,7 +611,8 @@ def create_table_index(self, key, **kwargs):
 
     def groups(self):
         """ return a list of all the top-level nodes (that are not themselves a pandas storage object) """
-        return [ g for g in self.handle.walkGroups() if getattr(g._v_attrs,'pandas_type',None) or getattr(g,'table',None) ]
+        _tables()
+        return [ g for g in self.handle.walkGroups() if getattr(g._v_attrs,'pandas_type',None) or getattr(g,'table',None) or isinstance(g,_table_mod.table.Table) ]
 
     def get_node(self, key):
         """ return the node with the key or None if it does not exist """
@@ -687,7 +688,8 @@ def error(t):
         if pt is None:
             if value is None:
 
-                if getattr(group,'table',None):
+                _tables()
+                if getattr(group,'table',None) or isinstance(group,_table_mod.table.Table):
                     pt = 'frame_table'
                     tt = 'generic_table'
                 else:
@@ -2551,8 +2553,6 @@ def write_data_chunk(self, indexes, mask, search, values):
                 self.table.append(rows)
                 self.table.flush()
         except (Exception), detail:
-            import pdb
-            pdb.set_trace()
             raise Exception(
                 "tables cannot write this data -> %s" % str(detail))
 
@@ -2675,6 +2675,10 @@ class GenericTable(AppendableFrameTable):
     def pandas_type(self):
         return self.pandas_kind
 
+    @property
+    def storable(self):
+        return getattr(self.group,'table',None) or self.group
+
     def get_attrs(self):
         """ retrieve our attributes """
         self.non_index_axes   = []

pandas/io/tests/test_pytables.py

@@ -1748,8 +1748,9 @@ def _check_roundtrip_table(self, obj, comparator, compression=False):
     def test_pytables_native_read(self):
         pth = curpath()
         store = HDFStore(os.path.join(pth, 'pytables_native.h5'), 'r')
-        d = store['detector']
-        str(store)
+        d1 = store['detector']
+        d2 = store['detector/table']
+        assert_frame_equal(d1, d2)
         store.close()
 
     def test_legacy_read(self):