Input File Format

The file format for the datasets read by XmdvTool is a simple ASCII format. All dimensions are represented by floating point values; discrete integer values will be converted automatically, but nominal values must be mapped to floating point. Simply assigning an integer to each name in the dimension usually works fine. The data file is composed of four main sections, described in detail here:

• Section 1 - The first line in the dataset file specifies how many dimensions there are in the data and how many data points. These values are stored as ASCII strings and must be separated by whitespace.
• Section 2 - The next section of the input file contains the labels for each of the dimensions. These are stored as ASCII strings and there must be one name per line. The number of lines in this section of the file must match with the number of dimensions specified on the first line.
• Section 3 - The third section of the input file contains the minimum and maximum values for each dimension and the number of bins to use in dimensional stacking. These are written as floating point numbers in ASCII format on a single line. These are stored as min/max/bin triplets for each dimension as such: min1 max1 bin1 min2 max2 bin2 ...

  The number of min/max/bin triplets should match the number of dimensions specified on line 1.

• Section 4 - The final section of the input file contains the actual data points. Each sample is stored as a set of ASCII format floating point numbers on a single line. The number of floating point values on a line must match the number of dimensions specified on line 1, and the number of samples should match the number also specified on line 1.