Output Section

The Output section is a dictionary of configuration settings for outputting data to the destination.

The argument setting is required. argument describes the type of value the destination argument passed to detakon.detakon.Converter is.

Based on the context of the argument supplied, a type setting may also be required to further describe the type of the output argument supplied.

Fox example, the filepath value for an argument can accept a value of "str" if a string representation of a path is supplied, or a "path" if output is a pathlib.Path.

A format setting is also required to specify the structure or data type of the data being output.

Output Settings

Settings to control data being output. argument, fields, and format settings are required.

Detakon uses pathlib.Path.open() to open files. Any additional settings can be provided that matches the parameters that pathlib.Path.open() accepts (except for mode). For example, an encoding setting can be supplied to change the character encoding.

append

Warning

By default Detakon will overwrite existing files. If you do not want this behavior, set append to true, and it will add to files instead.

An overwrite protection setting may be added in a future release.

The append setting is used to determine if ouput will overwrite existing data, or append to it. This setting typically only applies to writing files, but may also apply in other settings where overwriting existing data is possible.

When append is set to true, it is recommended to also set omit_heading to true. Otherwise, headings will be output as the first row for every append.

Append is a boolean value that defaults to false.

Values:

false (default)

Output will overwrite existing files.

true

Output will append to existing files.

argument

The arguments setting describes what type of argument was passed to the detakon.detakon.Converter as a destination parameter.

This setting is required.

filepath

Supplying the "filepath" value to the argument setting describes the destination as being a file path. It expects the destination argument provided to detakon.detakon.Converter to be a pathlib.Path.

A additional "type" setting can be provided in the Output section to modify the python type provided as an argument, when the argument can accept other types of values.

Other accepted "type" values for "filepath":

• "str" - to be used if the filepath supplied is a string.

fields

The fields setting should be a list of field names as strings, in the order fields should be in the outputted data. Some output formats may not have an order, but this setting is still required, as it may be used internally for other purposes.

This setting is required.

format

The format setting should specify the stucture or data type that will be outputted to the destination supplied to detakon.detakon.Converter.

This setting is required.

csv

To be used for data structured as Comma Separated Values (CSV), or similar data that can be written by Python’s csv.DictWriter class in the csv module.

Detakon uses csv.DictWriter to format CSV output. Any additional settings can be provided that matches the parameters that csv.DictWriter accepts.

For example, a delimiter setting can be supplied to change the delimiter used in the data, such as to read Tab Separated Value (TSV) data, or an encoding setting can be supplied to change the character encoding.

See the Python Docs for DictWriter for more details.

omit_heading

The omit_heading setting determines if output contains headings in text appropriate output formats.

When appending data, it is recommended to change this setting to true.

omit_heading is a boolean value that defaults to false.

Values:

false (default)

Output will contain headings.

true

Output data will not contain headings.

Examples

"Output": {
    "fields": ["External ID", "Company", "Last Name", "First Name", "Country", "Zip", "Phone", "Cell", "Email", "URL"],
    "argument": "filepath",
    "type": "str",
    "append": false,
    "omit_heading": false,
    "encoding": "utf-8",
    "format": "csv",
    "delimiter": ","
}