How to access a folder “/” in the Google bucket using Python libcloud?

Question

I have a Google bucket with the following tree ( Note the folder named "/"! ):

"bucket-1"
   |
   |--- "data.csv"
   |
   |--- "/"
         |
         |--- "runs"
                 |
                 |--- "run-1"
                 |       |
                 |       |--- "data.csv"
                 |
                 |--- "run-2"
                         |
                         |--- "data.csv"

I want to access the objects (.csv files) using the Python library libcloud in the sub-folder "/".

I can access data.csv which is outside of the "/" folder:

>>> client.get_object(container_name='bucket-1', object_name='/data.csv')
<Object: name=/data.csv, size=181580, hash=8252d90d95b7b1cb7b4e699b90fbcce3, provider=Google Cloud Storage ...>

Using gsutil with two slashes I can see objects in "/":

>>> gsutil ls "gs://bucket-1//runs/run-1"
gs://bucket-1//runs/run-1/data.csv

However with libcloud if I do client.get_object(container_name='bucket-1', object_name='//runs/run-1/data.csv') or client.get_object(container_name='bucket-1', object_name='/runs/run-1/data.csv') I get the error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/home/andrey/miniconda3/envs/mostly-cloud/lib/python3.6/site-packages/libcloud/storage/drivers/s3.py", line 342, in get_object
    object_name=object_name)
libcloud.storage.types.ObjectDoesNotExistError: <ObjectDoesNotExistError in <libcloud.storage.drivers.google_storage.GoogleStorageDriver object at 0x7f40560cd4e0>, value=None, object = //runs/run-1/data.csv>

On the other hand,

client.list_container_objects(client.get_container("bucket-1"))
[<Object: name=/runs/run-1/data.csv, size=357683, hash=..., provider=Google Cloud Storage ...>, <Object: name=/runs/run-2/data.csv, size=357683, hash=..., provider=Google Cloud Storage ...>] 

So, how to get an object located in the "/" directory?

Answer 1

I reproduced your scenario in order to test this behavior. I was able to create this hierarchy through:

gsutil cp your-file gs://your-bucket//abc

This is a weird behavior and it shouldn't be allowed.

If you try to create a folder with this name from the GCP console, you will see the message:

Forward slashes (/) are not allowed in folder names.

For that reason I created a Public Issue Tracker where you can get feedback regarding this issue.

About the naming of your folders, you can take a look at Google's documentation about how subdirectories are working.

To sum up, you shouldn't be allowed to create a folder with this name. The best course of action now is to avoid names like this and prefer a string name which you will be able to handle.