def read(*parts):
    """
    Build an absolute path from *parts* and and return the contents of the
    resulting file.  Assume UTF-8 encoding.
    """
    with codecs.open(os.path.join(HERE, *parts), "rb", "utf-8") as f:
        return f.read()
def range(cls, dataset, dimension):
        dimension = dataset.get_dimension(dimension, strict=True)
        column = dataset.data[dimension.name]
        if dimension.nodata is not None:
            column = cls.replace_value(column, dimension.nodata)
        if column.dtype.kind == 'O':
            return np.NaN, np.NaN
        else:
            return finite_range(column, column.min(), column.max())