Project formats

Sharing projects with other users on the same server eliminates the need to export and import projects. However, if you need to transfer a project to a different server, you can export a project as a file from one server and then import the project into another server. Exporting projects is also a useful technique for creating backups.

About exported project file formats

PolyAnalyst provides for five different export formats, i.e.

The available file formats all serve to store the contents of a project, but differ with respect to what additional information is stored within the exported file. All of the formats store information a binary, compressed form, similar to zip files.

The .ps6 format

The .ps6 format only stores the basic project’s structure, such as the nodes on the flowchart and their configuration.

This generally produces the smallest file size of the four formats. The results of the project’s nodes are not stored in the exported file. If you import this project, you will need to recreate all of the results by re-executing nodes.

The format is lightweight and easy to transfer to others, such as by email attachment. If you do not need to reproduce the exact results of nodes in a project, as some nodes may produce different results each time those nodes are executed (e.g. a Sample node), and if waiting for the nodes to re-execute is not problematic, then the .ps6 format is preferred.

The .pa6 format

The .pa6 file format stores all of the same information as the .ps6 format, but it also stores the results of nodes. .pa6 files are heavyweight and difficult to transfer.

Any node within the project could be storing millions of records as a dataset. Each dataset, chart, model, and other type of result will be stored. When the project is imported, the nodes will be readily viewable and store the same results as the project that was exported.

The export operation will take significantly longer as PolyAnalyst must potentially copy millions of records and all of the results of each type of node used within the project. Consequently, the import operation will also take significantly longer. The .pa6 format is generally not the preferred format.

Typically, the .pa6 format is only necessary when you need to ensure that the imported results will be precisely identical to the results prior to export, and if waiting for nodes to re-execute is not acceptable due to time constraints.

The .paar6 and .psar6 formats

The .paar6 and .psar6 file formats are similar to the .ps6 and .pa6 file formats, i.e.

  • The .psar6 format is a .ps6 project file with additional information.

  • The .paar6 is a .pa6 format along with additional information.

In both cases, the additional information is what PolyAnalyst refers to as archived results. The need to potentially store archived information derives from the use of the Dataset Link node with the project you wish to export. The Dataset Link node provides you with a way to reference a dataset that is already stored in PolyAnalyst by a node stored within any other project.

Adding such a link node to a project introduces a dependency between the project containing the link node and the project containing the data the node references. This dependency exists not only at the node level, but at the entire project level, meaning that you essentially now have created a project which has a dependent relationship with another project. Therefore, if you were to export a project that contains a Dataset Link node, and wanted to ensure the node would continue to work when imported, you will want to export the projects upon which the project you are exporting depends.

The .psar6 and .paar6 formats provide this ability, and it helps to avoid the need to generate multiple project export files, or to remember which projects depend upon each other.

The .psar6 format will store the contents of the flowchart, such as the nodes within the project, and will also store any flowcharts in other projects upon which the project depends. The .paar6 format works similarly, but also stores the data.

The .psar6 format, even though it may store multiple projects, remains lightweight and simple to transfer to others. The .paar6 format, however, can sometimes be an extremely large file. It will store the result of the exported project and will also store of all of the results of nodes in any referenced projects. This could be a file that is easily hundreds of gigabytes in size.

The .pagridar6 format

The .pagridar6 format is a special format created for the PolyAnalyst Grid compatability. PolyAnalyst Grid is a cross-platform cluster data analysis software suite based on distributed computing support and distributed data storage.

For more information see here.