Support for string arrays with categorize

[andreasg123]

It would be great if you could add support for string arrays that have been categorized with numcodecs.Categorize: https://zarr.readthedocs.io/en/stable/tutorial.html#string-arrays

In .zarray, they are represented like this:

"filters":[{"astype":"|u1","dtype":"|O","id":"categorize","labels":["abc","bcd","cde","def"]}]

A workaround would be to store an integer array in the Zarr hierarchy. The mappings would need to be put in a JSON file that is not part of the Zarr specification.

Is this something on your roadmap?

[GibbonJojo]

Is there an update on this issue?
I second the request to add support for string arrays.