how do you flatten and unflatten an array of doubles in labview? - labview

I have created a simple LabView program shown below that attempts to flatten an array [1,0,3] and then unflatten it and print out the contents.
However, I am unsuccessful in doing so. What am I doing wrong?

What am I doing wrong?
You're not going through tutorials or you're not reading the context help for the unflatten function (Ctrl+H) or you're not reading the full help for the function (right click>>Help) or you're not looking at the examples (from the help or Help>>Find Examples). Take your pick (preferably all four).
If you want an actual answer it is that LV is strictly typed, and therefore you need to tell the unflatten function which data type you want it to output (1D DBL array) and you're not doing that, but the real answer is what's in the previous paragraph - you should use those tools to learn how to find such an answer yourself.

The string returned by Flatten to String only contains the data, not the description of what data type was passed in, so in order to unflatten it again you need to tell Unflatten from String what type it was. You do this by wiring some data of the appropriate type (any data - if it's an array it can be an empty one) to the Type terminal.
I don't think this is immediately obvious from the LabVIEW 2012 help but I think it's fairly clear if you follow the link from the Unflatten from String help page to one of the examples. The Read Flattened Data.vi example has an array wired to the Type input.

Related

LabVIEW - How to clear an array after each iteration in a for loop

I'm trying to clear an array after each iteration of a for loop in LabVIEW, but the way I've implemented it has the values not going directly to what I want, but it changes with previous values in other parts of the array.
It isn't shown, but this code is inside of a for-loop that iterates through another numeric array.
I know that if I get the array to clear properly after each loop iteration, this should work. How do I do that? I'm a beginner at Labview but have been coding for awhile - help is appreciated!!!
[![labview add to array][2]][2]
It looks as if you're not quite used to how LabVIEW passes data around yet. There's no need to use lots of value property nodes for the same control or indicator within one structure; if you want to use the same data in more than one place, just branch the wire. Perhaps you're thinking that a LabVIEW control or indicator is equivalent to a variable in text languages, and you need to use a property node to get or set it. Instead, think of the wire as the variable. If you want to pass the output of one operation to the input of another, just wire the output to the input.
The indicators with terminals inside your loop will be updated with new values every loop iteration, and the code inside the loop should execute faster than a human can read those values, so once the loop has finished all the outputs except the final values will be lost. Is that what you intended, or do you want to accumulate or store them in some way?
I can see that in each loop iteration you're reading two values from a config file, and the section is specified by the string value of one element of the numeric array Array. You're displaying the two values in the indicators PICKERING and SUBUNIT. If you can describe in words (or pseudocode, or a text language you're used to) what manipulation of data you're actually trying to do in the rest of this code, we may be able to make more specific suggestions.
First of all, I'm assuming that the desired order of operations is the following:
Putting the value of Pickering into Array 2
Extracting from Array 2 the values to put in Pickering 1 and Pickering 2
Putting Array 2 back to its original value
If this is the case, with your current code you can't be sure that operation 1 will be executed be fore operation 2. In fact, the order of these operations can't be pre-determined. You must force the dataflow, for example by creating a sequence structure. You will put the code related to 1 in the first frame, then code related to operation 2 in the second.
Then, to put Array 2 back to it's original value I would add a third frame, where you force an empty array into the Value property node of Array 2 (the tool you use for pickering, but as input and not as output).
The sequence structure has to be inside the for loop.
I have never used the property node Reinit to default, so I can't help you with that.
Unfortunately I can't run Labview on this PC but I hope my explanation was clear enough, if not tell me and I will try to be more specific.

Reading Fortran binary file in Python

I'm having trouble reading an unformatted F77 binary file in Python.
I've tried the SciPy.io.FortraFile method and the NumPy.fromfile method, both to no avail. I have also read the file in IDL, which works, so I have a benchmark for what the data should look like. I'm hoping that someone can point out a silly mistake on my part -- there's nothing better than having an idiot moment and then washing your hands of it...
The data, bcube1, have dimensions 101x101x101x3, and is r*8 type. There are 3090903 entries in total. They are written using the following statement (not my code, copied from source).
open (unit=21, file=bendnm, status='new'
. ,form='unformatted')
write (21) bcube1
close (unit=21)
I can successfully read it in IDL using the following (also not my code, copied from colleague):
bcube=dblarr(101,101,101,3)
openr,lun,'bcube.0000000',/get_lun,/f77_unformatted,/swap_if_little_endian
readu,lun,bcube
free_lun,lun
The returned data (bcube) is double precision, with dimensions 101x101x101x3, so the header information for the file is aware of its dimensions (not flattend).
Now I try to get the same effect using Python, but no luck. I've tried the following methods.
In [30]: f = scipy.io.FortranFile('bcube.0000000', header_dtype='uint32')
In [31]: b = f.read_record(dtype='float64')
which returns the error Size obtained (3092150529) is not a multiple of the dtypes given (8). Changing the dtype changes the size obtained but it remains indivisible by 8.
Alternately, using fromfile results in no errors but returns one more value that is in the array (a footer perhaps?) and the individual array values are wildly wrong (should all be of order unity).
In [38]: f = np.fromfile('bcube.0000000')
In [39]: f.shape
Out[39]: (3090904,)
In [42]: f
Out[42]: array([ -3.09179121e-030, 4.97284231e-020, -1.06514594e+299, ...,
8.97359707e-029, 6.79921640e-316, -1.79102266e-037])
I've tried using byteswap to see if this makes the floating point values more reasonable but it does not.
It seems to me that the np.fromfile method is very close to working but there must be something wrong with the way it's reading the header information. Can anyone suggest how I can figure out what should be in the header file that allows IDL to know about the array dimensions and datatype? Is there a way to pass header information to fromfile so that it knows how to treat the leading entry?
I played a bit around with it, and I think I have an idea.
How Fortran stores unformatted data is not standardized, so you have to play a bit around with it, but you need three pieces of information:
The Format of the data. You suggest that is 64-bit reals, or 'f8' in python.
The type of the header. That is an unsigned integer, but you need the length in bytes. If unsure, try 4.
The header usually stores the length of the record in bytes, and is repeated at the end.
Then again, it is not standardized, so no guarantees.
The endianness, little or big.
Technically for both header and values, but I assume they're the same.
Python defaults to little endian, so if that were the the correct setting for your data, I think you would have already solved it.
When you open the file with scipy.io.FortranFile, you need to give the data type of the header. So if the data is stored big_endian, and you have a 4-byte unsigned integer header, you need this:
from scipy.io import FortranFile
ff = FortranFile('data.dat', 'r', '>u4')
When you read the data, you need the data type of the values. Again, assuming big_endian, you want type >f8:
vals = ff.read_reals('>f8')
Look here for a description of the syntax of the data type.
If you have control over the program that writes the data, I strongly suggest you write them into data streams, which can be more easily read by Python.
Fortran has record demarcations which are poorly documented, even in binary files.
So every write to an unformatted file:
integer*4 Test1
real*4 Matrix(3,3)
open(78,format='unformatted')
write(78) Test1
write(78) Matrix
close(78)
Should ultimately be padded by an np.int32 values. (I've seen references that this tells you the record length, but haven't verified persconally.)
The above could be read in Python via numpy as:
input_file = open(file_location,'rb')
datum = np.dtype([('P1',np.int32),('Test1',np.int32),('P2',np.int32),('P3',mp.int32),('MatrixT',(np.float32,(3,3))),('P4',np.int32)])
data = np.fromfile(input_file,datum)
Which should fully populate the data array with the individual data sets of the format above. Do note that numpy expects data to be packed in C format (row major) while Fortran format data is column major. For square matrix shapes like that above, this means getting the data out of the matrix requires a transpose as well, before using. For non square matrices, you will need to reshape and transpose:
Matrix = np.transpose(data[0]['MatrixT']
Transposing your 4-D data structure is going to need to be done carefully. You might look into SciPy for automated ways to do so; the SciPy package seems to have Fortran related utilities which I have not fully explored.

Store free text as variable in IBM Watson Assistant

i want to know if theres a way for IBM Watson assistant to store free text or direct input from the user as a variable. I know you can do it with number with the code below here:
"context" : {
"number_extract" : "<? input.text.extract('[\\d]+',0) ?>"
}
But this only works with numbers. what do you do when you want to store a free text for e.g. a name as a variable?The same code doesn't work for any other text but number so i assume there must be a code which works for text or free text. I would really appreciate your help. Thank you.
The input can be simply accessed using input.text. See this part of the documentation.
In your sample, an additional extract function is applied to the input string. The parameter to the extract function is a regex string (regular expression search string). In your sample, it searches for the first number. You can also search for other components, our transform the string. See the docs for other functions you can apply.
I have also collected samples for working with context variables in this GitHub repository.

ListObjects.Add.QueryTable Source Array String

I will provide some context before I ask my question.
I am attempting to query an SQL Server and create a table within Excel from the data. Because I am not familiar with how to accomplish this in VBA I recorded by using Data -> Get External Data -> From Other Sources -> Microsoft Query. In the dialog box that appears, I chose a .DSN file provided to me by someone else. I then used the Microsoft Query interface to structure the query and import the data onto a worksheet.
The code in the recorded macro looked something like this. I will use generic terms instead of the actual code.
With Sheet2.ListObjects.Add(SourceType:= 0, Source:=Array _
(Array("ODBC;DRIVER=SQL Server;SERVER=ServerName;UID=userid;Trusted_Connection=Yes;APP=Microsoft Windows Operating System;WSID=SomeString"), _
Array("A;DATABASE=DatabaseName")), Destination:=Range ("Sheet2!$A$1")).QueryTable
I know this is not formatted ideally, which is part of my question below.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb211863(v=office.12).aspx
From the above article, I know that SourceType:= 0 is an xlSrcExternal, or an external data source. This makes sense to me.
My confusion begins to arise when I get to the Source component of the Add method. From the provided article, "When SourceType = xlSrcExternal, an array of String values specifying a connection to the source, containing the following elements:
•0 - URL to SharePoint site
•1 - ListName
•2 - ViewGUID
So to begin with, what exactly is meant by "an array of String values", as the code from the recorded macro does not appear to correspond to what I thought was an array. I know that normally an array is declared something like this Array("string1", "string2", etc.). Or is the array recorded simply an array of one value? In other words Array("string1"). Does anyone know the purpose of passing an "array of string values" as opposed to just passing a string?
Also does anyone know the nuances of why the recorded macro has this particular formatting/syntax? In other words, why does it appear to have this syntax Array(Array("string1"),_ (new line) Array("string2"))? Why not just Array ("string1")? Does it have something to do with the second line being too long?
I have several more questions related to this topic, but this seemed like a good place to start..
Thank you all for any help given.

Extracting Data from an Area file

I am trying to extract information at a specific location (lat,lon) from different satellite images. These images are were given to me in the AREA format and I cooked up a simple jython script to extract temperature values like so.
While the script works, here is small snippet from it that prints out the data value at a point.
from edu.wisc.ssec.mcidas import AreaFile as af
url="adde://localhost/imagedata?&PORT=8113&COMPRESS=gzip&USER=idv&PROJ=0& VERSION=1&DEBUG=false&TRACE=0&GROUP=FL&DESCRIPTOR=8712C574&BAND=2&LATLON=29.7276 -85.0274 E&PLACE=ULEFT&SIZE=1 1&UNIT=TEMP&MAG=1 1&SPAC=4&NAV=X&AUX=YES&DOC=X&DAY=2012002 2012002&TIME=&POS=0&TRACK=0"
a=af(url);
value=a.getData();
print value
array([[I, [array([I, [array('i', [2826, 2833, 2841, 2853])])])
So what does this mean?
Please excuse me if the question seems trivial, while I am comfortable with python I am really new to dealing with scientific data.
Note
Here is a link to the entire script.
After asking around, I found out that the Area objects returns data in multiples of four. So the very first value is what I am looking for.
Grabbing the value is as simple as :
ar[0][0][0]