Availability Model Translation Toolkit

Notes

This software was developed in CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) as part of my Technical Student spell.

This software is under (heavy) development.

Input Formats

The following input formats are currently supported. You can create your own format by implementing the Loader interface. For more details, please see the documentation in the loader module's __init__.py file.

CSV Input Format

Introduction

This section outlines the specification requirements for the CSV (Comma Separated Values) input format.

The CSV format is the simpler and most common way to import/export spreadsheet and database data. The files are plain text files containing one row per record. The record fields themselves are separated by a predefined delimiter (most commonly a comma , but a semicolon ; or a TAB are also valid options).

Each CSV file can represent one database table or one spreadsheet sheet. This means that you cannot have multiple tables or sheets in one file.

Model definition

Due to the aforementioned "limitation" of CSV files, you will need to define (or generate) a collection of CSV files to describe the model, one file per schema item.

The requirements of the layout are the following:

1. Each file must be named as {table_name}.csv, where {table_name} is the table name that the file represents, in lower-case letters, with an underscore (_) between words. For example, the file that represents the Components table must be named components.csv, whereas the file that represents the Logic table must be named logic.csv.
2. Each file must have a header with the column names in its first row. The column names must be exactly the same as in the schema specification.

After making sure that the above requirements are met, place all CSV files in one directory (eg. csv_input) and provide the directory path as the input command line argument in the csv option (use -h for help).

XLS/XLSX Input Format

Introduction

The XLS format is also known as the Microsoft Office 2003 Excel format. It is a different and older format when compared to the Microsoft Office 2007 Excel format (XLSX).

Model definition

The model definition for the XLS/XLSX format is the same as the CSV format, with the only difference being that it is not necessary (and you should not) put the tables in different files. Instead, tables should be defined in the same document, but in separate sheets.

Output Formats

The following output formats are currently supported.

Isograph (Availability Workbench)

Isograph Availability Workbench is an availability simulation tool developed by Isograph LTD. For more information, please visit the software website.

As of version 2.1, Isograph Availability Workbench supports importing from XML, Excel and CSV files, as well as importing from Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database. The files that amtt generates are in Excel format. More formats may be added in the future, mainly database ones. However, for the time being, no more than Excel file inputs are necessary.