DataTube2 considers its own two CSV formats for temporal data:

• The synchronous temporal format is when all data attributes (i.e., variables) were recorded at the same time steps and with the same temporal difference between time steps. Hence, it is a matrix, like in this example:

If you use the synchronous format, be sure that the two above conditions are met.

• The asynchronous temporal format considers that data attributes were recorded at any time and independently. This is an “event” type representation, like in this example:

This array does not need to be sorted.

To begin, let us remind you that the differences between the French CSV format and the International CSV format are the following:

The DataTube2 synchronous format supports both encodings, and you can specify the French/International encoding by answering “Yes” or “No” in the following window, which is diplayed when you open a file:

The asynchronous format in DataTube2 uses TAB character as separator and “.” for decimals:

Simple demo files with artificial data are provided in each format (synchronous or asynchronous) and for each CSV encoding (French or international).

DT2-synchronous-small-file-international.csv

To encore your own data in a CSV file:

• Select the format to use, i.e., either synchronous or asynchronous (see explanation above),
• Study the examples provided with DataTube2 (see the Data directory),
• Give names to the variables,
• To represent time values :
  • the GMT format is yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss
  • yyyy must be greater than 1970 (this is due to the EPOCH format, we'll try to improve in future releases),
  • DataTube2 can use GMT or EPOCH (but yet, please use GMT, we need additional testing for EPOCH format),
• To represent data values:
  • for synchronous format (see the discussion above), use either the French CSV format (like this “;3,1415;”) or the International CSV format (like this “,3.1415,”),
  • for asynchronous format, use TAB for separators and “.” for decimals,