use of 'az' as a shorter version of 'abfs'

[raybellwaves]

Moved from filesystem_spec to here

This is more of a discussion than a feature request.

Looking at known_implementations in fsspec there are gcs and gs which both point to gcsfs.GCSFileSystem. Could az be created as a shorter version of abfs?

az is common with Azure CLI syntax e.g. docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-use-azcopy-v10#run-azcopy.
As someone who is very lazy I prefer two key strokes instead of four.

Caveats

Unlike gs and s3, Azure has two classes (adlfs.AzureDatalakeFileSystem and adlfs.AzureBlobFileSystem). I imagine you can't use az for both classes.

Proposed solution

Use az as a shortcut for 'abfs': {'class': 'adlfs.AzureBlobFileSystem'}. Given this is for the latest version of storage (Azure Datalake Gen2 and Azure Blob Storage). In addition my 50 % reduction in key strokes motivation doesn't apply to adl (Azure Datalake Gen1).

[hayesgb]

I'm open to the idea, but I'd like to get feedback from @martindurant. When we settled on abfs as the protocol, it was based on the fact that abfs:// is the defined protocol for AzureBlobFileSystem, as described here.

[hayesgb]

I just saw that this discussion started in fsspec. I'm OK with it. As a side-note, I've also started to see the "az://" show up in at least one other place as well.

[martindurant]

You can, of course, have both protocols.

[raybellwaves]

Yeah I was thinking of making it akin to gcs and gs. I imagine replacing abfs with az would probably lead too many breaking changes for users.

I'm thinking of seeing the following in fsspec.registry.known_implementations:

'abfs': {'class': 'adlfs.AzureBlobFileSystem', 'err': 'Install adlfs to access Azure Datalake Gen2 and Azure Blob Storage'},
'az': {'class': 'adlfs.AzureBlobFileSystem', 'err': 'Install adlfs to access Azure Datalake Gen2 and Azure Blob Storage'}

[martindurant]

OK, so go ahead!
I think the protocol attribute of the implementation class in this repo should also change to a tuple of the possible strings, ("az", "abfs") at the same time

[hayesgb]

@raybellwaves -- I'm good with this. Are you planning to submit a PR?

[raybellwaves]

Closed via #111