.. highlightlang:: us .. index:: Overview UPDF Files, UPDF Files .. _overview-updf-files: Overview UPDF Files =================== UPDF (Uni-Plot-Data-Format) will be the new file format for UniPlot R2012. It will be used for UniPlot document files (IPZ files) and netCDF files (NC2 files). UniPlot R2012 will still be able to create and read the original netCDF format. Both formats are using the same netCDF interface. A flag will indicate the new format during file creation. .. _format-description: Format Description ------------------ UPDF files are set up like file systems. An UPDF file contains directories. The directories can contain files and directories. As in a file system, files can be added, removed, renamed, extended or moved. .. image:: S:/uniplot-obj/images/overview-updf-de.* Directories and files can contain attributes, so called key-value pairs. Different data types, e.g. Unicode strings or 64-bit integers, are supported. Scalar values, vectors and matrices of values can be saved. To avoid confusion directories are named storages, files are named streams and attributes are named properties. Properties have a property name and a property value. .. _advantages-of-the-new-format: Advantages of the new Format ---------------------------- * Writing UniPlot 5.x files can be very slow for big files with multiple pages. Writing of UPDF files is faster: The time to write a file increases linearly, i.e. to write 200 pages takes only twice as long as 100 pages. * The current IPW files and nc files do not use compression. UPDF uses compression and thus data is saved compactly. * Current nc files are limited to 2 Giga-Bytes in size. UPDF files are limited to 8 Tera-Bytes. * NC-files encounter performance problems if data is modified, e.g. if a global attribute has been added to a file, the complete nc file must be written to disk. This is not necessary for NC2 files. * Transactions are possible for NC2 files. .. _format-properties: Format Properties ----------------- * Max. size of UPDF files: approx. 8 Terabytes (8000 GB). * Number of characters for storage-, stream- and property names: 255. * Max. size of streams: 8 TB. * Max. number of streams and storages per storage: 2^31. In real life some 10,000. * Max. size of a property value: Some MB's (must fit in RAM memory). * Number of properties per stream or storage: 2^31. In real life some 100,000. .. _valid-names-in-storages,-streams-and-properties: Valid Names in Storages, Streams and Properties ----------------------------------------------- A valid names contains 1 to 255 Unicode characters. The following characters are invalid: Characters in in range 0 to 31 and the following 9 characters '/', '\\', '*', '?', '"', '<', '>', ':', '|'. .. _logging-updf: Logging ------- Normally UPDF function errors are written in UniPlot's Event Window. With the command:: log_set_active("updf", 0) logging can be turned off. .. _garbage-collection-updf: Garbage collection ------------------ Garbage collection is used for all pointers. Unclosed elements will be closed in the correct order by the garbage-collector (:ref:`gc`). .. _uniscript-interface-updf: UniScript Interface ------------------- .. us.makeindex updf-misc, Tools .. include:: ../ftab/updf-misc.ftab .. us.makeindex updf-stor, Storages and Streams .. include:: ../ftab/updf-stor.ftab .. us.makeindex updf-stream, Streams .. include:: ../ftab/updf-stream.ftab .. us.makeindex updf-enum, Iteration (Storages and Streams) .. include:: ../ftab/updf-enum.ftab .. us.makeindex updf-props, Properties .. include:: ../ftab/updf-props.ftab .. us.makeindex updf-propvals, Property-Values .. include:: ../ftab/updf-propvals.ftab .. seealso:: :ref:`functions-by-categories` :sub:`id-824069`