Renamed sanitize_mat function

Author: BSchilperoort

PyStemmusScope/forcing_io.py

@@ -161,7 +161,7 @@ def prepare_global_variables(data, input_path, config):
     matfiledata['Dur_tot'] = float(total_duration) # Matlab expects a 'double'
 
     hdf5storage.savemat(input_path / "forcing_globals.mat", matfiledata, appendmat=False)
-    utils.sanitize_mat_file(input_path / "forcing_globals.mat")
+    utils.remove_dates_from_header(input_path / "forcing_globals.mat")
 
 
 def prepare_forcing(config):

PyStemmusScope/soil_io.py

@@ -227,4 +227,4 @@ def prepare_soil_data(config):
     hdf5storage.savemat(
         Path(config["InputPath"]) / "soil_parameters.mat", mdict=matfiledata, appendmat=False,
     )
-    utils.sanitize_mat_file(Path(config["InputPath"]) / "soil_parameters.mat")
+    utils.remove_dates_from_header(Path(config["InputPath"]) / "soil_parameters.mat")

PyStemmusScope/utils.py

@@ -69,7 +69,15 @@ def to_absolute_path(
     return pathlike.expanduser().resolve(strict=must_exist)
 
 
-def sanitize_mat_file(filename):
+def remove_dates_from_header(filename):
+    """Removes the datetime string from the .mat file header.
+
+    MATLAB raises an error when some characters are non-UTF-8 (?), e.g. Chinese month
+    names. This function removes this part of the file header to avoid this problem.
+
+    Args:
+        filename (Path): Valid path to the .mat file
+    """
     with open(filename, "rb") as f:
         data = f.read()