odML ↔️ NIX metadata conversion tool

This tool reads in odML / NIX files and writes the metadata structure to newly created NIX / odML files. When run as a script from the command line, it prints information regarding the number of Sections and Properties that were read, written, or skipped for various reasons.

For more information on the odML and NIX data formats, please check the sections below.

Installation

You can easily install the converter via the Python package manager pip.

pip install nixodmlconverter

Usage

After installing the package, you can use the convert.py script found in the directory 'nix-odML-converter/nixodmlconverter' that acts as a command line tool.

You can use it to a) import the content of an existing odML file into a NIX file or b) to export the odML content of a NIX file into a new odML file.

Import of odML into a NIX file

From the command line use the convert.py script to import the contents of an existing odML file into a NIX file:

python nix-odML-convert/nixodmlconverter/convert.py odmlfile.xml nixfile.nix

The odML file has to be provided in XML format.

Export odML from a NIX file

From the command line use the convert.py script to export the contents of an existing NIX file to a new odML file:

python nix-odML-convert/nixodmlconverter/convert.py nixfile.nix newodmlfile.xml

Usage notes

For compatibility with the NIX metadata format, which differs slightly from the odML format, the following modifications occur when converting from odML to NIX:

If a Section has a reference create a property called reference
If a Property has a reference put the reference in the Property's values
Values of type URL, person, and text are treated as strings
Values of type datetime, date, and time are converted to string representations
Values of type binary are discarded

Building from source

You can also install the package by cloning the github repository and installing from source.

git clone https://github.com/G-Node/nix-odML-converter.git
cd nix-odML-converter
python setup.py install

Dependencies

Python 3.6+
Python packages:
- odml (>=1.4.5)
- nixio (>=1.5.0b3)

These dependency packages can be manually installed via the python package manager pip:

pip install "odml>=1.4.5" "nixio>=1.5.0b3"

or by manually installing the nix-odML-converter from the repository root:

python setup.py install

Python 2 has reached end of life. Future versions of nixodmlconverter will no longer support Python 2. We further recommend using a Python version >= 3.6.

NIX (Neuroscience information exchange) format

The NIX data model allows to store fully annotated scientific datasets, i.e. the data together with its metadata within the same container. Our aim is to achieve standardization by providing a common/generic data structure for a multitude of data types.

The source code of the core python library is freely available on GitHub and can be installed via the Python package manager pip by typing pip install nixio.

More information about the project including related projects as well as tutorials and examples can be found at our odML project page.

odML (Open metaData Markup Language) format

The open metadata Markup Language is a file based format (XML, JSON, YAML) for storing metadata in an organised human- and machine-readable way. odML is an initiative to define and establish an open, flexible, and easy-to-use format to transport metadata.

The source code of the core library is freely available on GitHub and can be installed via the Python package manager pip by typing pip install odml.