Settings

In pycps/settings.json you can specify values specific to your project. The file is basically a JSON file, with some comments.

Paths

You should define several paths:

• data_path: The root directory for the downloaded data
• dd_path: the directory that will hold the downloaded data dictionaries
• dd_store: path to an HDFStore for the data dictionary
• monthly_path: subdirectory for monthly files
• monthly_store: path to an HDFStore for the monthly files
• merged_store: path to the final HDFStore, containing the merged files.

Paths can extend other paths by refering to the parent in curly braces. In this example, dd_path extends data_path:

{

“data_path”: “data/”, “dd_path”: “{data_path}/data_dictionaries/”,

}

I haven’t implemented escaping yet, which means you can’t use curly braces in your path names; they can only refer to parents. File an issue if this is a problem for you.

Dates

You should also define the months of data you need for your project.

• date_start: YYYY-MM string with the first month to download
• date_end: YYYY-MM string with the last month to download

All months between date_start and date_end, inclusive, will be downloaded and parsed.

Example

Here’s an example settings file:

{
    "data_path": "data",
    "dd_path": "{data_path}/data_dictionaries/",
    "dd_store": "{dd_path}/dds.hdf",
    "monthly_path": "{data_path}/monthly/",
    "monthly_store": "{monthly_path}/monthly.hdf",
    "merged_store": "{monthly_path}/merged.hdf",
    "date_start": "1995-09",
    "date_end": "2014-05",
    "info_path": "pycps/info.json"
}