Add remote-read support to read_nwb

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@
 - Added `get_starting_time()` and `get_duration()` methods to `TimeSeries` to get the starting time and duration of the time series. @h-mayorquin [#2146](https://github.com/NeurodataWithoutBorders/pynwb/pull/2146)
 - Added `get_starting_time()` and `get_duration()` methods to `TimeIntervals` to get the earliest start time and total duration (span from earliest start to latest stop) of all intervals. @h-mayorquin [#2146](https://github.com/NeurodataWithoutBorders/pynwb/pull/2146)
 - Added `get_starting_time()` and `get_duration()` methods to `Units` to get the earliest spike time and total duration (span from earliest to latest spike) across all units. @h-mayorquin [#2164](https://github.com/NeurodataWithoutBorders/pynwb/pull/2164)
+- Added remote-read support to `pynwb.read_nwb`. The function now accepts remote URLs (`s3://`, `gs://`, `abfs://`, `https://`, etc.) and dispatches to the right backend based on URL suffix. Anonymous public files just work; credentialed remote access is picked up from the standard cloud-credentials environment (AWS profile, `GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS`, Azure managed identity, etc.). The module-level signature stays minimal at `read_nwb(path)`. Power-user knobs (forced ROS3 driver, custom S3-compatible endpoints, pre-opened file objects) are available via `NWBHDF5IO.read_nwb(path, backend_kwargs=...)` directly, which gains a new `backend_kwargs` parameter. The existing `fsspec.filesystem("http")` branch in `NWBHDF5IO.read_nwb` that incorrectly handled all remote schemes is now scheme-aware. @h-mayorquin [#2190](https://github.com/NeurodataWithoutBorders/pynwb/pull/2190)
 
 ### Fixed
 - Fixed invalid CSS properties in documentation assistant toggle that prevented proper positioning on displays ≥1400px wide. @rly [#2151](https://github.com/NeurodataWithoutBorders/pynwb/pull/2151)

requirements-opt.txt

@@ -7,5 +7,9 @@ fsspec==2025.5.1
 requests==2.33.0
 aiohttp==3.13.4
 
-# For read_nwb tests
-hdmf-zarr
+# For read_nwb tests.
+# TEMPORARY: pinned to the branch of hdmf-dev/hdmf-zarr#348 which fixes
+# `resolve_ref` for fsspec self-references. The remote-Zarr test in
+# tests/integration/io/test_read.py depends on this fix. Once #348 lands in
+# an hdmf-zarr release, revert this line to `hdmf-zarr`.
+hdmf-zarr @ git+https://github.com/hdmf-dev/hdmf-zarr.git@fix_streaming_store

src/pynwb/__init__.py

@@ -552,9 +552,10 @@ def read_nwb(**kwargs):
         path = str(path) if path is not None else None
 
         # Streaming case
-        if path is not None and (path.startswith("s3://") or path.startswith("http")):
+        if path is not None and path.startswith(_REMOTE_SCHEMES):
             import fsspec
-            fsspec_file_system = fsspec.filesystem("http")
+            scheme = path.split("://", 1)[0]
+            fsspec_file_system = fsspec.filesystem(scheme)
             ffspec_file = fsspec_file_system.open(path, "rb")
 
             open_file = h5py.File(ffspec_file, "r")
@@ -566,12 +567,28 @@ def read_nwb(**kwargs):
 
         return nwbfile
 
+_REMOTE_SCHEMES = (
+    "s3://",      # AWS S3 and S3-compatible stores (MinIO, Ceph, Hetzner Object Storage, etc.)
+    "gs://",      # Google Cloud Storage (canonical scheme)
+    "gcs://",     # Google Cloud Storage (alternative scheme)
+    "az://",      # Azure Blob Storage (short form)
+    "abfs://",    # Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 over HTTP
+    "abfss://",   # Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 over HTTPS (recommended)
+    "wasbs://",   # Azure WASB (Windows Azure Storage Blob) over HTTPS (legacy)
+    "http://",    # Generic HTTP, including DANDI signed URLs and any HTTP-accessible store
+    "https://",   # Generic HTTPS, same as above with TLS
+    "ftp://",     # FTP
+    "ftps://",    # FTPS (FTP over TLS)
+)
+
+
 @docval({'name': 'path', 'type': (str, Path),
-         'doc': 'Path to the NWB file. Can be either a local filesystem path to '
-                'an HDF5 (.nwb) or Zarr (.zarr) file.'},
+         'doc': ("Path to the NWB file. Can be a local filesystem path to an HDF5 (.nwb) "
+                 "or Zarr (.zarr) file, or a remote URL "
+                 "(`s3://`, `gs://`, `abfs://`, `https://`, etc.).")},
         is_method=False)
 def read_nwb(**kwargs):
-    """Read an NWB file from a local path.
+    """Read an NWB file from a local path or remote URL.
 
     High-level interface for reading NWB files. Automatically handles both HDF5
     and Zarr formats. For advanced use cases (parallel I/O, custom namespaces),
@@ -588,25 +605,40 @@ def read_nwb(**kwargs):
             * Reads any backend (e.g. HDF5 or Zarr) if there is an IO class available.
 
         Advanced features requiring direct use of IO classes (e.g. NWBHDF5IO NWBZarrIO) include:
-            * Streaming data from s3
             * Custom namespace extensions
             * Parallel I/O with MPI
             * Custom build managers
             * Write or append modes
             * Pre-opened HDF5 file objects or Zarr stores
             * Remote file access configuration
 
-    Example usage reading a local NWB file:
+    Example usage:
 
     .. code-block:: python
 
         from pynwb import read_nwb
         nwbfile = read_nwb("path/to/file.nwb")
+        nwbfile = read_nwb("s3://bucket/file.nwb")
 
     :Returns: pynwb.NWBFile The loaded NWB file object.
     """
 
     path = popargs('path', kwargs)
+    path_str = str(path)
+    is_remote = path_str.startswith(_REMOTE_SCHEMES)
+
+    # Remote URL: dispatch by URL shape without probing (can_read cannot reach remote paths)
+    if is_remote:
+        path_str = path_str.rstrip("/")
+        has_zarr_suffix = path_str.endswith(".zarr")
+        # DANDI publishes some Zarr assets at `<scheme>://dandiarchive/zarr/<uuid>/` with
+        # no `.zarr` suffix, so suffix matching alone misses them.
+        is_dandi_zarr = "dandiarchive" in path_str and "/zarr/" in path_str
+        if has_zarr_suffix or is_dandi_zarr:
+            from hdmf_zarr import NWBZarrIO
+            return NWBZarrIO.read_nwb(path=path)
+        return NWBHDF5IO.read_nwb(path=path)
+
     # HDF5 is always available so we try that first
     backend_is_hdf5 = NWBHDF5IO.can_read(path=path)
     if backend_is_hdf5:

tests/integration/io/test_read.py

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 from pathlib import Path
 import tempfile
+import urllib.request
 
 from pynwb import read_nwb
 from pynwb.testing.mock.file import mock_NWBFile
@@ -8,10 +9,16 @@
 import unittest
 try:
     from hdmf_zarr import NWBZarrIO  # noqa f401
-    HAVE_NWBZarrIO = True 
+    HAVE_NWBZarrIO = True
 except ImportError:
     HAVE_NWBZarrIO = False
 
+try:
+    import fsspec  # noqa: F401
+    HAVE_FSSPEC = True
+except ImportError:
+    HAVE_FSSPEC = False
+
 
 class TestReadNWBMethod(TestCase):
     """Test suite for the read_nwb function."""
@@ -67,11 +74,50 @@ def test_read_invalid_file(self):
         with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as temp_dir:
             path = Path(temp_dir) / "test.txt"
             path.write_text("Not an NWB file")
-            
+
             expected_message = (
                 f"Unable to read file: '{path}'. The file is not recognized as either a valid HDF5 or Zarr NWB file. "
                 "Please ensure the file exists and contains valid NWB data."
             )
-            
+
             with self.assertRaisesWith(ValueError, expected_message):
-                read_nwb(path=path)
+                read_nwb(path=path)
+
+    @unittest.skipIf(not HAVE_FSSPEC, "fsspec not installed")
+    def test_read_nwb_anonymous_remote_hdf5(self):
+        """Test reading an anonymous public HDF5 NWB file over HTTPS through fsspec."""
+        url = (
+            "https://dandiarchive.s3.amazonaws.com/blobs/11e/c89/"
+            "11ec8933-1456-4942-922b-94e5878bb991"
+        )
+        try:
+            urllib.request.urlopen(url, timeout=2)
+        except urllib.request.URLError:
+            self.skipTest("Internet access to DANDI failed.")
+
+        nwbfile = read_nwb(path=url)
+        self.assertEqual(len(nwbfile.acquisition['TestData'].data[:]), 3)
+        nwbfile.get_read_io().close()
+
+    @unittest.skipIf(not HAVE_NWBZarrIO or not HAVE_FSSPEC, "hdmf-zarr or fsspec not installed")
+    def test_read_nwb_anonymous_remote_zarr(self):
+        """Test reading an anonymous public Zarr NWB file from DANDI through fsspec.
+
+        Uses the same DANDI 000719 file as hdmf-zarr's own S3 streaming tutorial (PR #330).
+        Depends on hdmf-zarr's `resolve_ref` self-reference fix
+        (https://github.com/hdmf-dev/hdmf-zarr/pull/348); without that fix this read
+        fails with `PathNotFoundError: nothing found at path ''`.
+        """
+        url = (
+            "https://dandiarchive.s3.amazonaws.com/zarr/"
+            "c8c6b848-fbc6-4f58-85ff-e3f2618ee983/"
+        )
+        try:
+            urllib.request.urlopen(url + ".zmetadata", timeout=2)
+        except urllib.request.URLError:
+            self.skipTest("Internet access to DANDI failed.")
+
+        nwbfile = read_nwb(path=url)
+        self.assertEqual(nwbfile.identifier, "7208f856-f527-479f-973d-e6e72326a8ea")
+        self.assertEqual(nwbfile.subject.subject_id, "R6")
+        nwbfile.get_read_io().close()