Python Package Documentation

opendataformat

Overview

The opendataformat package is specifically designed to facilitate the seamless utilization of the Open Data Format (ODF). It offers functionality to import data from the Open Data Format into a Python pandas data frame, as well as export data from a Pandas data frame to the Open Data Format. You can easily access comprehensive information about the dataset and variables in Python. This user-friendly approach ensures convenient exploration and utilization of dataset information within your preferred environment.

For more comprehensive insights into the Open Data Format specification, please visit: Open Data Format Specification. This resource provides detailed documentation and profiles illustrating the storage locations of attributes within the Open Data Format, as well as within the native formats to which they will be converted. Additionally, you will have access to a practical example of real data in the Open Data Format.

Installation

# You can install the development version from GitHub:
pip install git+https://github.com/opendataformat/python-package-opendataformat.git

Getting started

import opendataformat as odf

The opendataformat package consists of five main functions:

  • odf.read_odf() to read an Open Data Format file in Pandas. This function takes an input parameter “path”, which is the path to the Open Data Format ZIP file.

  • odf.docu_odf() to display or retrieve metadata for a ODF data frame or a variable / column.

  • odf.write_odf() to write the Pandas Dataframe to an Open Data Format ZIP file. By specifying the dataframe input and providing the output directory path the function will generate a ZIP file containing the dataset as “data.csv” and “metadata.xml”.

Multilingual Datasets

When working with a multilingual dataset, the opendataformat package provides the option to specify the language you want to work with for the main functions: read_odf(), docu_odf(), and write_odf().

You can achieve this by using the languages argument and setting it to either all to include all languages, or by specifying the language code such as de for German or en for English. This allows you to easily select the desired language for your dataset operations. The language codes are defined by the ISO 639-1.

Getting help

If you encounter a clear bug, please file a minimal reproducible example on https://github.com/thartl-diw/py-package-opendataformat/issues.

Table of Contents