Handle single PathLike objects in open_mfdataset()

Fixes #5881

Author: pmav99

doc/whats-new.rst

@@ -80,6 +80,8 @@ Bug fixes
   By `Jimmy Westling <https://github.com/illviljan>`_.
 - Numbers are properly formatted in a plot's title (:issue:`5788`, :pull:`5789`).
   By `Maxime Liquet <https://github.com/maximlt>`_.
+- ``open_mfdataset()`` now accepts a single `pathlib.Path` object (:issue: `5881`).
+  By `Panos Mavrogiorgos <https://github.com/pmav99>`_.
 
 Documentation
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

xarray/backends/api.py

@@ -865,6 +865,8 @@ def open_mfdataset(
             )
         else:
             paths = sorted(glob(_normalize_path(paths)))
+    elif isinstance(paths, os.PathLike):
+        paths = [os.fspath(paths)]
     else:
         paths = [str(p) if isinstance(p, Path) else p for p in paths]
 

xarray/tests/test_backends.py

@@ -3039,6 +3039,14 @@ def test_open_mfdataset_manyfiles(
             assert_identical(original, actual)
 
 
+@requires_netCDF4
+@requires_dask
+def test_open_mfdataset_can_open_path_objects():
+    dataset = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "data", "example_1.nc")
+    with open_mfdataset(Path(dataset)) as actual:
+        assert isinstance(actual, Dataset)
+
+
 @requires_netCDF4
 @requires_dask
 def test_open_mfdataset_list_attr():