Using arbitrary paths

Vortex makes it possible to fetch (write) data files from (to) locations outside of the vortex data tree, whether it is local or remote.

Local paths

You can specify an arbitrary path to write (read) a resource from (to) by passing an optional extra argument remote to calls to vortex.input() or vortex.output(). The value must be a string containing the path to the target or source data file. The path must either be absolute or relative to the user’s home directory.

Passing the remote argument replaces passing arguments specifying the location of the source (target) data file within the vortex data tree, such as block, experiment, vapp or vconf.

The following snippet would cause the creation of a file named ICMSHFCSTINIT linking to file /home/user/data/analysis.fa:

import vortex as vtx

vtx.input(
    kind="analysis",
    date="2024082600",
    model="arpege",
    cutoff="production",
    filling="atm",
    remote="/home/user/data/analysis.fa"
    local="ICMSHFCSTINIT",
).get()

Remote paths

The two optional arguments hostname and tube can be used to specify the address and protocol of a remote machine:

hostname

A string containing the address of the remote machine

tube

Specifies the protocol used to access the remote machine. Allowed values are "scp" for the SSH protocol and "ftp" for FTP.

For instance:

handler = vtx.input(
    kind="analysis",
    date="2024082600",
    # ...
    remote="/home/user/data/analysis.fa"
    hostname="hendrix.meteo.fr",
    tube="ftp",
)

Important

The requests are made with the current user’s account.