[Doc]: temporal average no longer takes freq?

[lee1043]

Describe your documentation update

In the example of temporal average doc,

ds_month = ds.temporal.average("ts", freq="month")
ds_month.ts

But in my test with latest xcdat it returns

TypeError: TemporalAccessor.average() got an unexpected keyword argument 'freq'

I cannot recall we removed freq from temporal average, but if so, doc needs update accordingly.

[pochedls]

Good catch. Did you want group_average() or should average take freq? I've never used this function so I don't remember the history.

The line that needs updating (to correct the documentation) is here: https://github.com/xCDAT/xcdat/blob/main/xcdat/temporal.py#L191.

[lee1043]

@pochedls Thanks for your comment. @pochedls @tomvothecoder please correct me if I am wrong, but I think we have separated group_average from average, so group_average can get annual cycle (12 time points if monthly) or seasonal mean (4 time points) or more, while average returns overall average (thus, one time point). In such case, I think it makes sense to not have freq option for average.

[tomvothecoder]

@pochedls Thanks for your comment. @pochedls @tomvothecoder please correct me if I am wrong, but I think we have separated group_average from average, so group_average can get annual cycle (12 time points if monthly) or seasonal mean (4 time points) or more, while average returns overall average (thus, one time point). In such case, I think it makes sense to not have freq option for average.

Hey @lee1043, you are correct here.

.average() collapses the time dimension. freq was removed from the method parameters and is instead inferred from the variable's time coordinates (_infer_freq).

We'll just need to update the .average() example to remove freq. Thanks!