Clarify behaviour if zero uncertainties

docs/usage.rst

@@ -337,4 +337,12 @@ After creating the Uncertainty objects, the only additional step is to attach th
     variable.add_uncertainty(unc1)
     variable.add_uncertainty(unc2)
 
-
+See `Uncertainties`_ for more guidance. In particular, note that ``hepdata_lib`` will omit the ``errors`` key from the
+YAML output if all uncertainties are zero for a particular bin, printing a warning message "Note that bins with zero
+content should preferably be omitted completely from the HEPData table". A legitimate use case is where there are
+multiple dependent variables and a (different) subset of the bins has missing content for some dependent variables.
+In this case the uncertainties should be set to zero for the missing bins with a non-numeric central value like ``'-'``.
+The warning message can be suppressed by passing an optional argument ``zero_uncertainties_warning=False`` when
+defining an instance of the ``Variable`` class.
+
+.. _`Uncertainties`: https://hepdata-submission.readthedocs.io/en/latest/data_yaml.html#uncertainties

hepdata_lib/__init__.py

@@ -115,13 +115,15 @@ class Variable:
     # pylint: disable=too-many-instance-attributes
     # Eight is reasonable in this case.
 
-    def __init__(self, name, is_independent=True, is_binned=True, units="", values=None):
+    def __init__(self, name, is_independent=True, is_binned=True, units="", values=None,
+                 zero_uncertainties_warning=True):
         # pylint: disable=too-many-arguments
         self.name = name
         self.is_independent = is_independent
         self.is_binned = is_binned
         self.qualifiers = []
         self.units = units
+        self.zero_uncertainties_warning = zero_uncertainties_warning
         # needed to make pylint happy, see https://github.com/PyCQA/pylint/issues/409
         self._values = None
         self.values = values if values else []
@@ -273,7 +275,7 @@ def make_dict(self):
                                 },
                                 "label": unc.label
                             })
-            elif self.uncertainties:
+            elif self.uncertainties and self.zero_uncertainties_warning:
                 print(
                     "Warning: omitting 'errors' since all uncertainties " \
                     "are zero for bin {} of variable '{}'.".format(i+1, self.name)

tests/test_uncertainty.py

@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ def test_scale_values(self):
     def test_set_values_from_intervals(self):
         '''Test behavior of Uncertainy.test_set_values_from_intervals function'''
 
-        # Dummy central values and variatons relative to central value
+        # Dummy central values and variations relative to central value
         npoints = 100
         values = list(range(0, npoints, 1))
         uncertainty = [(-random.uniform(0, 1), random.uniform(0, 1))
@@ -91,3 +91,27 @@ def test_mixed_uncertainties(self):
         pattern = ['symerror', 'asymerror', 'asymerror', 'symerror']
         self.assertTrue((list(dictionary['values'][i]['errors'][0].keys())[
                         0], value) for i, value in enumerate(pattern))
+
+    def test_zero_uncertainties(self):
+        '''Test cases where a data point has zero uncertainties'''
+
+        # Asymmetric uncertainties
+        var = Variable("testvar", is_binned=False, values=[1, 2, 3, 4])
+        unc = Uncertainty("fake_unc", is_symmetric=False)
+        unc.values = [(-1, 1), (-1.5, 2), (0, 0), (-2.5, 2.5)]
+        var.add_uncertainty(unc)
+        dictionary = var.make_dict()
+        # Check that 'errors' key is missing only if zero uncertainties
+        self.assertTrue(all('errors' in dictionary['values'][i] for i in [0, 1, 3]))
+        self.assertTrue('errors' not in dictionary['values'][2])
+
+        # Symmetric uncertainties (and use "zero_uncertainties_warning=False" option)
+        var = Variable("testvar", is_binned=False, values=[1, 2, 3, 4],
+                       zero_uncertainties_warning=False)
+        unc = Uncertainty("fake_unc", is_symmetric=True)
+        unc.values = [1, 1.5, 0, 2.5]
+        var.add_uncertainty(unc)
+        dictionary = var.make_dict()
+        # Check that 'errors' key is missing only if zero uncertainties
+        self.assertTrue(all('errors' in dictionary['values'][i] for i in [0, 1, 3]))
+        self.assertTrue('errors' not in dictionary['values'][2])