Input

We’ve already mentioned it in the introduction: all data entry for gamma-cat happens by editing or adding text files in the input folder. We use file formats that are both human- and machine-readable:

  • YAML files for hierarchical data
  • ECSV files for tabular data

This section describes the format and content of the data entry files for gamma-cat.

All data entry is done in the folder named input. It contains three sub-folders of interest:

  • sources contains yaml-files with basic information about the gamma-ray sources.
  • data contains the data from publications stored in YAML and ECSV files. The folder contains subfolders named by years and there subsubfolders named by reference_ids. E.g. the data from the publication with reference 2015ApJ...802...65A is stored in the folder input/data/2015/2015ApJ...802...65A. All these files are named corresponding to the source_id of the gamma-ray source defined in its definition file.
  • schemas contains files which define the structure of the data entry files and descriptions of the properties in the data files.

Now, these input files will be discussed in more detail, firstly the source definition files in sources:

The information (and a short description) which can be stored in such a file are defined by some keywords in basic_source_info.schema.yaml. It starts with properties, like the common_name, the source_id used in gamma-cat or the tevcat_name and goes on with information about experiments which investigated this source. Two important information are the reference_ids, which are all ADS reference to publication which deal with this source, and the source_id from which the names in the data folder are built. At the end of basic_source_info.schema.yaml after the keyword required, there are all of the upper information written down which have to be defined in a source definition file.

A good example to get familiar with this is e.g. tev_000049.yaml and compare it with basic_source_info.schema.yaml

The folders in /input/data/<year>/<reference> contain ecsv files with measured data in it, e.g. tev-000034-sed.ecsv, yaml files with model parameters, e.g. tev-000034.yaml, and finally a info yaml file in which all data corresponding to the publication are summarised, e.g. info.yaml.

The escv files can be either the measurement of spectral fluxes or of lightcurves. Information about the units of the data and additional information like source_id or telescope are stored as meta data in the header of the file. The naming convention is tev-<source_id>-sed.ecsv and tev-<source_id>-lc.ecsv, respectively.

The YAML files contain the model parameters given in the publication and are named within gamma-cat as dataset-files. The information which can/ has to be stored in a yaml file are defined in dataset_source_info.schemas.yaml.

The info.yaml files give an overview about all stored data which is related to the publication and its layout is defined in dataset_info.schema.yaml. One important property in a info file is data-entry with its subinformation status, reviewed and notes.

Add/ Change data:

When you add or change input data you have to do three things. Firstly, you must add or change the data, secondly, you must update the data status in the corresponding info.yaml file and finally, you have to tell gamma-cat that there is new data. This is done in gamma_cat_dataset.yaml where you must add the reference_id of the publication of the added data. Gamma-cat will only contain data whose reference_id is listed in gamma_cat_dataset.yaml.