[Neuroimaging] Reading mgz files in NiBabel 2.3.0

[ts+ml at rcmd.org]

Dear list members,

I'm trying to load a FreeSurfer MGZ file (its header to be precise) using nibabel 2.3.0:

import nibabel.freesurfer.mghformat as fsmgh

def read_mgh(mgh_file_name):
    with open(mgh_file_name, 'rb') as mgh_file_handle:
        header = fsmgh.MGHHeader.from_fileobj(mgh_file_handle)
        ...

This works fine if the file is in MGH format, but NOT if it is gzipped (MGZ format). In that case, you get the following exception in the last line:

klass = <class 'nibabel.freesurfer.mghformat.MGHHeader'>, fileobj = <closed file '/home/spirit/develop/brainload/tests/brainload/../test_data/subject1/mri/orig.mgz', mode 'rb' at 0x7f2448ef2e40>
check = True

    @classmethod
    def from_fileobj(klass, fileobj, check=True):
        '''
            classmethod for loading a MGH fileobject
            '''
        # We need the following hack because MGH data stores header information
        # after the data chunk too. We read the header initially, deduce the
        # dimensions from the header, skip over and then read the footer
        # information
        hdr_str = fileobj.read(klass._hdrdtype.itemsize)
        hdr_str_to_np = np.ndarray(shape=(), dtype=klass._hdrdtype,
                                   buffer=hdr_str)
        if not np.all(hdr_str_to_np['dims']):
>           raise MGHError('Dimensions of the data should be non-zero')
E           MGHError: Dimensions of the data should be non-zero

env/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/nibabel/freesurfer/mghformat.py:165: MGHError



So my question is: how should I read the file? Am I supposed to unpack it myself before reading, or is there some other function for this in nibabel which I overlooked?

The files in question are available here in case you want them:
- The MGZ file, it fails with this one: http://rcmd.org/tmp/orig.mgz
- The same file, manually unzipped using gunzip in the shell. The code works with this one: http://rcmd.org/tmp/orig.mgh


Thanks in advance,

-- 
Tim