[Tutorial] Data formats for input files

In this tutorial it is described what is the format of files which can be imported to BEANS out-of-the box (without implementing a plugin).

Currently BEANS support plain text files.

Import from plain text files

BEANS allows to import data from a text file with the following format:

• the file consists of a number of rows - one row per one line in the file
• every line consists of the same amount of columns throughout the whole file

Example file is following:

1   1
2   4
3   9
4  16
5  25
6  36
....

Plain text files can contain header in the first line (or lines) with the names and descriptions of the columns.

Simple headers

Simple header consist of one line, starting with '#' character which has to be in the beginning of the file. This line contains names of the columns separated with white characters (spaces or tabs). Every Column name can consist only from alphanumeric characters.

Example file, with the simple header, is following:

# x  y
1   1
2   4
3   9
4  16
5  25
6  36
....

Full headers

Full headers contains the names of the columns and their longer descriptions. The format of the full header is a simple JSON file with two fields: "name" and "description". The JSON objects is written in the beginning of the file and every line of the full header is preceded with the '#' character.

Example file, with the full header, is following:

# [
#    {   "name" : "x",   "description" : "x axis"    },
#    {   "name" : "y",   "description" : "y axis"    }
# ] 
1   1
2   4
3   9
4  16
5  25
6  36
....