Raw file name format

In order to correctly detect only valid raw files inside the Raw data directory (and possibly its subfolder), you need to specify a Raw file name format that EddyPro uses as a template to select only files that comply with it. Valid raw files must match this template with respect to three aspects:

  • The length of the file name must match the length of the template name.
  • The timestamp tokens must match the wildcards of the template, see later.
  • Any string prepended or appended to the timestamp (including file extension) must match between the file name and the template, with the exception of the question mark character (?)1, that is used in the template as a placeholder to allow variables characters in the file name, see examples below.

For each file type discovered in the Raw data directory, EddyPro® will provide you a sample file name. The easiest way to enter the Raw file name format is to:

  1. Substitute timestamp information in the sample file name with the following characters:
    1. yy for a 2-digit year;
    2. yyyy for a 4-digit year;
    3. dd for a 2-digit day-of-month;
    4. mm for a 2-digit month-of-the-year;
    5. ddd for a 3-digit day-of-year (DOY);
    6. HH for a 2-digit hour;
    7. MM for a 2-digit minute.
  2. Substitute any character that is expected to change between file names of the same dataset, with a question mark.

Note: All timestamp information must be present in raw file names. While day/month (or DOY) and hour information are virtually always available, years and minutes are sometimes not documented on file names. However, they are necessary to EddyPro. A tool is available on demand to automatically rename raw files including missing timestamp information.

As an example, if the raw file name prototype is:

mysite_yyyy_ddd_HHMM_****.dat

then valid file names are:

mysite_2015_005_1030_abcd.dat

mysite_2015_005_1030_1234.dat

but the following ones are invalid:

mysight_2015_005_1030_abcde.dat (both prefix and suffix too long)

123456_2015_005_1030_1234.dat (although of the same length, the prefix is different from that in the template)