& yarnabrina [MNT] move deep_equals and dependency checkers from testing to utilities to remove accidental coupling to pytest

[fkiraly]

This PR moves deep_equals and dependency checkers from testing to utilities to remove accidental coupling to pytest.

Also see here for the problem caused by this: #177 - this fixes #177

Crediting @yarnabrina for the fix as suggested in sktime/sktime#4544 (comment)

[yarnabrina]

I know almost nothing about how skbase works, but is it not necessary to add deep_equals to __init__.py? Or, it'd be this way during deprecation period, and then changed?

[fkiraly]

I know almost nothing about how skbase works, but is it not necessary to add deep_equals to init.py? Or, it'd be this way during deprecation period, and then changed?

Unfortunately the module name is the same as the function name, so it would result in a clash to import the function to the same module that contains the module of the same name, no?

Might be suboptimal...

[yarnabrina]

Unfortunately the module name is the same as the function name, so it would result in a clash to import the function to the same module that contains the module of the same name, no?

Just to be clear, I meant doing something like this in skbase/utils/__init__.py:

## existing imports

from sktime.utils.deep_equals import deep_equals

## or if you accept relative imports
## from .deep_equals import deep_equals

## existing codes

Tried locally, and it works.

>>> 
>>> from skbase.utils import deep_equals as a
>>> from skbase.testing.utils.deep_equals import deep_equals as b
/path/to/skbase/fork/skbase/testing/utils/_dependencies.py:10: UserWarning: _check_soft_dependencies, _check_python_versiontesting have moved to skbase.utils.dependencies. The old location will be removed in skbase 0.6.0.
  warn(
/path/to/skbase/fork/skbase/testing/utils/deep_equals.py:10: UserWarning: deep_equals has moved to skbase.utils.deep_equals. The old location will be removed in skbase 0.6.0.
  warn(
>>> 
>>> a
<function deep_equals at 0x7f680574b040>
>>> b
<function deep_equals at 0x7f680574b040>
>>> 
>>> b is a
True
>>> 

(/path/to/skbase/fork is obvious edited, but it works without any clash.)

Can you please check #181?

[codecov-commenter]

Codecov Report

Merging #178 (ca7fcd4) into main (9a5c70c) will decrease coverage by 0.16%.
The diff coverage is 64.36%.

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@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main     #178      +/-   ##
==========================================
- Coverage   82.89%   82.74%   -0.16%     
==========================================
  Files          39       43       +4     
  Lines        2777     2805      +28     
==========================================
+ Hits         2302     2321      +19     
- Misses        475      484       +9     

Impacted Files	Coverage Δ
skbase/utils/dependencies/_dependencies.py	57.42% <57.42%> (ø)
skbase/utils/deep_equals.py	64.96% <64.96%> (ø)
skbase/base/_base.py	80.06% <100.00%> (ø)
skbase/testing/test_all_objects.py	79.35% <100.00%> (ø)
skbase/testing/utils/_dependencies.py	100.00% <100.00%> (+42.57%)	⬆️
skbase/testing/utils/deep_equals.py	100.00% <100.00%> (+30.46%)	⬆️
skbase/testing/utils/tests/test_deep_equals.py	100.00% <100.00%> (ø)
skbase/utils/dependencies/__init__.py	100.00% <100.00%> (ø)

... and 1 file with indirect coverage changes