File formats

This section describes configuration and data file formats handled by TeraPy.

Contents

• File formats
  • Configuration files
    • Scan sequences
    • Filter banks
  • Data files

Configuration files

Configuration files read by TeraPy are in XML format. The default configuration files have already been described in Configuration. In addition, TeraPy allows to load and save event sequences (see Scan events) and filter banks (see Post-processing filters). The file formats are the same as for default configuration files. These are recalled below.

Scan sequences

Scan sequence files have the following structure:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
       <config scope="events">
               <events>
                       <item name="sequence name" class="Sequence">
                               <item class="scan event class 1" name="display name 1" some_property="some value"/>
                               <item class="scan event class 2" name="display name 2" some_property="some value">
                                       <item class="scan event class 3" name="display name 3" some_property="some value"/>
                               </item>
                               ...
                       </item>
               </events>
       </config>

The file can describe one or several scan sequences. Each item in the sequence is represented by an <item> tag. Properties depend on the scan event class and should be set according to the Scan events section.

See the sample events.ini file for an example.

Filter banks

The structure of filter bank files is as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
       <config scope="filters">
               <filters name="Filter bank name" dimension="data dimension to apply to (int)">
                       <item class="filter class 1" name="filter display name 1" some_property="some value"/>
                       <item class="filter class 2" name="filter display name 2" some_property="some value"/>
                       ...
               </filters>
       </config>

Several filter banks can be placed in the same file, each corresponding to a separate <filters> entry. The dimension property sets the data dimension, to which the filter bank applies (e.g. 1D data -> dimension="1"). If, for a given dimension, more than one bank is present, TeraPy takes the last one in the file.

Each filter in a filter bank corresponds to one <item> tag. Properties depend on the filter class and should be set according to the Post-processing filters section.

See the sample filters.ini for an example.

Data files

Data files are handled by the terapy.files package. Currently, the supported formats are

format	Description	Read	Write	Max. dimension	Multiple datasets
HDF5	Hierarchical Data Format (see http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/)	Yes	Yes		Yes
XLS	Microsoft Excel spreadsheet	Yes	Yes	2	Yes
Text	Plain text	Yes	Yes	2	No
OPJ	Origin project file	Yes	No	2	Yes

If your favorite format is not in this list, don’t despair! You can learn how to write a new module in no time with the Developer’s guide.