Bin Conversion

Converting plain-text simulation output to HDF5 format.

Why Convert?¶

If you ran a simulation without HDF5 and want to switch to the HDF5 analysis pipeline (or simply consolidate output), you can convert existing plain-text bins to data.h5.

convert_bins.py¶

The main conversion tool. Requires Python 3 with h5py and f90nml.

# In the simulation directory (where bin files and 'parameters' live):
$ALF_DIR/Analysis/convert_bins.py

This:

1. Reads the parameters file to extract simulation metadata

2. Converts all *_scal, *_eq, and *_tau bin files into a single data.h5

3. Moves old plain-text bin files to an old_bins/ subdirectory

Options¶

$ALF_DIR/Analysis/convert_bins.py --remove-old-bins   # delete old bins instead of moving them

Batch Conversion¶

To convert all simulation directories in a tree at once:

$ALF_DIR/Analysis/convert_batch.sh

This finds all directories containing Ener_scal (indicating a completed run) and runs convert_bins.py in each.

Alternatively:

find . -name "Ener_scal" -execdir $ALF_DIR/Analysis/convert_bins.py \;

Individual Converters¶

For finer control, the individual Fortran converters can be called:

These are called internally by convert_bins.py and rarely need to be used directly.

Notes¶

• The parameters file must be present in the same directory as the bin files.

• For Hubbard model runs with Mz=.true., the converter applies a special fix (halving N_SUN and setting N_FL=2) to match the internal data layout.