Improve validation error

[forsyth2]

Improve validation error. Resolves #281. Inadvertently discovered #319 in the process.

[forsyth2]

It appears the behavior of config.validate(validator) has changed significantly.

[forsyth2]

Launches the following:

climo_atm_monthly_180x360_aave_1850-1851
climo_atm_monthly_180x360_aave_1852-1853
climo_atm_monthly_180x360_aave_1850-1853
climo_atm_monthly_diurnal_8xdaily_180x360_aave_1850-1851
climo_atm_monthly_diurnal_8xdaily_180x360_aave_1852-1853
climo_atm_monthly_diurnal_8xdaily_180x360_aave_1850-1853

Both the "1850:1854:2" (2-year increment) jobs and the "1850:1854:4" (4-year increment) jobs are launched successfully. Does this mean the trailing comma is no longer a requirement of string_list parameters?

[forsyth2]

Causes ValueError: Invalid value 4 for 'active' at runtime rather than a failed configuration validation.

[forsyth2]

If active = True above, then the error we get here is ValueError: Error interpreting years 1. climo's multiple year sets above no longer appear to need a trailing comma. However, this error seems to indicate at least one comma must be present in a string_list parameter.

[forsyth2]

result is a bool now. In the past, it has historically been some sort of dictionary or dictionary-like object. For example, from a validation failure discussed in a 3/22 Slack message, we had:

Validation results={'e3sm_diags': True, 'e3sm_diags_vs_model': True, 'mpas_analysis': True, 'default': True, 'climo': {'qos': True, 'nodes': True, 'walltime': True, 'input_files': True, 'fre
quency': True, 'mapping_file': True, 'grid': True, 'years': False, 'exclude': True, 'vars': True, 'atm_monthly_180x360_aave': True}, 'ts': True, 'tc_analysis': True, 'amwg': True, 'global_ti
me_series': {'input_subdir': True, 'qos': True, 'nodes': True, 'walltime': True, 'color': True, 'years': True, 'ts_num_years': True, 'figstr': True, 'moc_file': True, 'experiment_name': True
, 'ts_years': False, 'climo_years': False, 'atmosphere_only': True}}

[forsyth2]

It appears the behavior of config.validate(validator) has changed significantly.

@golaz See above comments regarding new issues with the validator. I can't find too much about the validate function. https://configobj.readthedocs.io/en/latest/validate.html# was last updated in 2014. https://github.com/DiffSK/configobj was last updated in 2020.

[forsyth2]

I turned my branch of this into years-fix for #338. #281/#320 were intended to improve the error description from the validator. However, as reported in #319, the validator no longer warns of a missing comma. Therefore, it is simpler to just add the workaround in #338.

Ideally, we would get the validator working again (#319), at which point we can improve its error message (#281/#320), so I'm leaving this pull request open, but removing it from the December 2022 project.