Configuration

Because of the variety of layouts of crosstabbed data, the information necessary to describe each crostabbed file can be complex. For this reason, and also to facilitate documentation of the way in which a file was handled, the un-crosstabbing information is read from a configuration file rather than passed to the program on the command line.

The configuration file may contain several sections, where each section contains configuration data for a separate data set to be normalized. For example, each section in a configuration file could pertain to a different worksheet in an Excel workbook of crosstabbed data.

Each section is identified by a unique name. The name must be enclosed in square brackets, e.g.:.

[section_name]

The configuration data in each section consists of a set of pairs of keywords and values. The keywords and values must be separated by a colon or an equal sign, e.g.:

key:value

or

key=value

Each configuration option must be on its own line. Comment lines can be included in the configuration file; these must begin with a hash symbol (#). The configuration keywords and their meanings are as folllows.

data_columns

A list of the columns in the input file containing crosstabbed data that are to be normalized. The list may consist of comma-separated column numbers or ranges; ranges consist of two column numbers separated by a dash. In addition to column numbers, letters may also be used as column identifiers, as in spreadsheets. There should be no spaces in the list.

data_rows

A list of the rows containing data to be normalized. The list may consist of comma-separated row numbers or ranges; ranges consist of two row numbers separated by a dash. There should be no spaces in the list.

row_headers

A list of the columns to the left (or right) of the crosstabbed data columns that are to be preserved in the normalized output. The list may consist of comma-separated column numbers or ranges; ranges consist of two row numbers separated by a dash. In addition to column numbers, letters may also be used as column identifiers, as in a spreadsheet. There should be no spaces in the list.

column_header_rows

A list of the rows containing column header values that are to be used in the normalized output. The list may consist of comma-separated row numbers or ranges; ranges consist of two row numbers separated by a dash. There should be no spaces in the list.

column_group_count

The number of columns (they must be contiguous) containing related data values that should appear on the same row of the normalized output.

column_header_label_#

The header text (label) for one of the column_group_count output columns. The value consists of the name that is to be used for the column header. There should be exactly column_header_count column_header_label keywords, and each keyword should include a numeric suffix to make it unique. The numeric suffixes should range from 1 to column_group_count.

header_as_column_#

A multi-part value that identifies a cell in the matrix of (column_header_rows by column_group_count) cells that contains a value that is to be propagated into the normalized output as a new column. The multi-part value consists of two digits and a string. The two digits identify the cell in the column header matrix that is to be used as a data value. The digits are the row number and the column number, in that order. The string is used as the header for that column.

row_headers_row

The row on which the headers for the row_headers columns appear. This configuration parameter is optional. If omitted, the maximum of column_header_rows will be used. If specified, the value must be one of the column_header_rows.

nd_values

A list of strings that represent missing values in cells of the crosstabbed data table. If all column_header_count values of a set are missing, a row will not be written to the output file for this set of values.

List values should be separated by commas. Numeric lists may include ranges, consisting of two integers separated by a dash. All configuration parameters are required except for nd_values. The meaning of several of these configuration parameters is illustrated in the following figure.

An example set of configuration parameters is shown below. This are the parameters that were used to normalize the chemical data set shown above.

[concentration_data]
data_columns=5-10
data_rows=7-11
row_headers=1-4
column_header_rows=3-6
column_group_count=2
column_header_label_1=Concentration
column_header_label_2=Qualifier
header_as_column_1=1,1,Analyte
header_as_column_2=2,1,Units
header_as_column_3=3,1,Measurement basis