Adding metadata to a unyt_array or unyt_quantity

[gregsalvesen-work]

Can a unyt_array or unyt_quantity store metadata?

I like this feature in Astropy. For example, I can add information to a Quantity object Q using its info attribute like so:

# Add information (name, meta, description) to an Astropy Quantity Q
def add_info(Q, name=None, meta=None, description=None):
    if name: Q.info.name = name
    if meta: Q.info.meta = meta
    if description: Q.info.description = description
    return Q

This is handy for attaching a brief description to the object or a TeX-formatted string for axes labels.

[neutrinoceros]

Sorry for the delay. I don't see much added value in supporting this in unyt.
unyt.Unit objects have a latex_representation method that already fills your needs (axis labels); you should be able to format a label from a unyt_quantity (q) as, for instance

label = "$%.2f %s$" % (q.v, q.units.latex_representation())

the matplotlib interface also helps with achieving this seamlessly.

Overall I currently don't think there's a need for this feature in unyt, and I'm inclined to close this ticket, but I'll give a chance to interested parties to voice their opinions.

@gregsalvesen-work, can you give an example of something this would enable that's not already cleanly achievable using existing interface ?

@jzuhone any opinion here ?