ENH: Function to walk the group hierarchy of a PyTables HDF5 file.

closes pandas-dev#10143

doc/source/api.rst

@@ -100,6 +100,7 @@ HDFStore: PyTables (HDF5)
    HDFStore.select
    HDFStore.info
    HDFStore.keys
+   HDFStore.walk
 
 Feather
 ~~~~~~~

doc/source/io.rst

@@ -3554,6 +3554,25 @@ everything in the sub-store and **below**, so be *careful*.
    store.remove('food')
    store
 
+
+You can walk through the group hierarchy using the ``walk`` method which
+will yield a tuple for each group key along with the relative keys of its contents.
+
+.. versionadded:: 0.24.0
+
+
+.. ipython:: python
+
+   for (path, subgroups, subkeys) in store.walk():
+       for subgroup in subgroups:
+           print('GROUP: {}/{}'.format(path, subgroup))
+       for subkey in subkeys:
+           key = '/'.join([path, subkey])
+           print('KEY: {}'.format(key))
+           print(store.get(key))
+
+
+
 .. warning::
 
     Hierarchical keys cannot be retrieved as dotted (attribute) access as described above for items stored under the root node.

doc/source/whatsnew/v0.24.0.txt

@@ -23,7 +23,8 @@ Other Enhancements
   reflect changes from the `Pandas-GBQ library version 0.5.0
   <https://pandas-gbq.readthedocs.io/en/latest/changelog.html#changelog-0-5-0>`__.
   (:issue:`21627`)
-
+- New method :meth:`HDFStore.walk` will recursively walk the group hierarchy of an HDF5 file (:issue:`10932`)
+-
 
 .. _whatsnew_0240.api_breaking:
 

pandas/io/pytables.py

@@ -1106,6 +1106,53 @@ def groups(self):
                  g._v_name != u('table'))))
         ]
 
+    def walk(self, where="/"):
+        """ Walk the pytables group hierarchy for pandas objects
+
+        This generator will yield the group path, subgroups and pandas object
+        names for each group.
+        Any non-pandas PyTables objects that are not a group will be ignored.
+
+        The `where` group itself is listed first (preorder), then each of its
+        child groups (following an alphanumerical order) is also traversed,
+        following the same procedure.
+
+        .. versionadded:: 0.24.0
+
+        Parameters
+        ----------
+        where : str, optional
+            Group where to start walking.
+            If not supplied, the root group is used.
+
+        Yields
+        ------
+        path : str
+            Full path to a group (without trailing '/')
+        groups : list of str
+            names of the groups contained in `path`
+        leaves : list of str
+            names of the pandas objects contained in `path`
+
+        """
+        _tables()
+        self._check_if_open()
+        for g in self._handle.walk_groups(where):
+            if getattr(g._v_attrs, 'pandas_type', None) is not None:
+                continue
+
+            groups = []
+            leaves = []
+            for child in g._v_children.values():
+                pandas_type = getattr(child._v_attrs, 'pandas_type', None)
+                if pandas_type is None:
+                    if isinstance(child, _table_mod.group.Group):
+                        groups.append(child._v_name)
+                else:
+                    leaves.append(child._v_name)
+
+            yield (g._v_pathname.rstrip('/'), groups, leaves)
+
     def get_node(self, key):
         """ return the node with the key or None if it does not exist """
         self._check_if_open()

pandas/tests/io/test_pytables.py

@@ -635,6 +635,57 @@ def test_get(self):
 
             pytest.raises(KeyError, store.get, 'b')
 
+    @pytest.mark.parametrize('where, expected', [
+        ('/', {
+            '': ({'first_group', 'second_group'}, set()),
+            '/first_group': (set(), {'df1', 'df2'}),
+            '/second_group': ({'third_group'}, {'df3', 's1'}),
+            '/second_group/third_group': (set(), {'df4'}),
+        }),
+        ('/second_group', {
+            '/second_group': ({'third_group'}, {'df3', 's1'}),
+            '/second_group/third_group': (set(), {'df4'}),
+        })
+    ])
+    def test_walk(self, where, expected):
+        # GH10143
+        objs = {
+            'df1': pd.DataFrame([1, 2, 3]),
+            'df2': pd.DataFrame([4, 5, 6]),
+            'df3': pd.DataFrame([6, 7, 8]),
+            'df4': pd.DataFrame([9, 10, 11]),
+            's1': pd.Series([10, 9, 8]),
+            # Next 3 items aren't pandas objects and should be ignored
+            'a1': np.array([[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6]]),
+            'tb1': np.array([(1, 2, 3), (4, 5, 6)], dtype='i,i,i'),
+            'tb2': np.array([(7, 8, 9), (10, 11, 12)], dtype='i,i,i')
+        }
+
+        with ensure_clean_store('walk_groups.hdf', mode='w') as store:
+            store.put('/first_group/df1', objs['df1'])
+            store.put('/first_group/df2', objs['df2'])
+            store.put('/second_group/df3', objs['df3'])
+            store.put('/second_group/s1', objs['s1'])
+            store.put('/second_group/third_group/df4', objs['df4'])
+            # Create non-pandas objects
+            store._handle.create_array('/first_group', 'a1', objs['a1'])
+            store._handle.create_table('/first_group', 'tb1', obj=objs['tb1'])
+            store._handle.create_table('/second_group', 'tb2', obj=objs['tb2'])
+
+            assert len(list(store.walk(where=where))) == len(expected)
+            for path, groups, leaves in store.walk(where=where):
+                assert path in expected
+                expected_groups, expected_frames = expected[path]
+                assert expected_groups == set(groups)
+                assert expected_frames == set(leaves)
+                for leaf in leaves:
+                    frame_path = '/'.join([path, leaf])
+                    obj = store.get(frame_path)
+                    if 'df' in leaf:
+                        tm.assert_frame_equal(obj, objs[leaf])
+                    else:
+                        tm.assert_series_equal(obj, objs[leaf])
+
     def test_getattr(self):
 
         with ensure_clean_store(self.path) as store: