ExternData

Free Modelica library for data I/O of CSV, INI, JSON, MATLAB MAT, SSV, TIR, Excel XLS/XLSX and XML files.

Status

Library description

ExternData is a utility library to access data stored in CSV, INI, JSON, MATLAB MAT, SSV, TIR, Excel XLS/XLSX or XML files.
The aim of this library is to provide access from Modelica simulation tools to data sets for convenient model initialization and parameterization.
An overview of the library is provided in

Thomas Beutlich and Dietmar Winkler. Efficient Parameterization of Modelica Models. In: Proceedings of
the 14th International Modelica Conference. Ed. by Martin Sjölund, Lena Buffoni, Adrian Pop, and Lennart Ochel. Linköping, Sweden, September 2021. DOI: 10.3384/ecp21181141.

Main features

• Read support of file formats
  • CSV
  • INI
  • JSON
  • MATLAB MAT of version v4, v6, v7 and v7.3 (HDF5)
  • SSV (System Structure Parameter Values v1.0)
  • TIR (Tire properties)
  • Excel XLS and XLSX
  • XML (incl. XPath queries)
• C (and not C++) code for external functions and objects
• Cross-platform (Windows and Linux)
• Dependency on the Modelica Standard Library v4.0.0
• Tested in Dymola, OpenModelica and SimulationX

All data I/O access is implemented using external Modelica functions.

License

ExternData is released under the terms of the Simplified BSD License.

Acknowledgement

ExternData is based on the following third-party C projects

• bsxml-json -
  Borislav Sapundzhiev’s fairly simple XML DOM and JSON implementation
• expat -
  James Clark’s Expat XML parser library
• hdf5 -
  The HDF Group’s data model, library and file format for storing and managing data
• inih -
  Ben Hoyt’s simple INI file parser in C
• libxls -
  David Hoerl’s C library for parsing Excel files
• libxml2 -
  Daniel Veillard’s XML C parser and toolkit of Gnome
• matio -
  Christopher Hulbert’s C library for reading and writing MATLAB MAT-files
• minizip -
  Gilles Vollant’s Zip and UnZip library
• parson -
  Krzysztof Gabis’ lightweight JSON library written in C
• uthash -
  Troy D. Hanson’s C macros for hash tables and more
• zlib -
  Jean-loup Gailly’s and Mark Adler’s massively spiffy yet delicately unobtrusive compression library
• zstring -
  Fehmi Noyan ISI’s string processing library for C

Citing

Use the following BibTeX lines to cite the ExternData library.

@InProceedings{ExternData,
  title = {{Efficient Parameterization of Modelica Models}},
  author = {Beutlich, Thomas and Winkler, Dietmar},
  pages = {141--146},
  doi = {10.3384/ecp21181141},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 14th International Modelica Conference},
  location = {Link\"oping, Sweden},
  editor = {Sj\"olund, Martin and Buffoni, Lena and Pop, Adrian and Ochel, Lennart},
  isbn = {978-91-7929-027-6},
  issn = {1650-3740},
  month = sep,
  series = {Link\"oping Electronic Conference Proceedings},
  number = {181},
  publisher = {Modelica Association and Link\"oping University Electronic Press},
  year = {2021}
}

Development and contribution

You may report any issues with using the Issues button.

Contributions in shape of Pull Requests are always welcome.