Squirrel manual

The squirrel command line tool is a front-end to the Squirrel data access infrastructure.

It offers functionality to

• inspect various aspects of a data collection.

• pre-scan / index file collections.

• download data from online sources (FDSN web services, earthquake catalogs).

• convert large data collections (file format and directory layout)

• manage separate (isolated, local) environments for different projects.

• manage persistent selections to speed up access to very large datasets.

Command reference

The squirrel tool and its subcommands are self-documenting with the --help option. Run squirrel without any options to get the list of available subcommands. Run squirrel SUBCOMMAND --help to get details about a specific subcommand, e.g. squirrel scan --help.

• squirrel
  • squirrel codes - Get summary of available data codes.
  • squirrel coverage - Report time spans covered.
  • squirrel database - Database inspection and maintenance.
    • squirrel database env - Show current Squirrel environment.
    • squirrel database stats - Show information about cached meta-data.
    • squirrel database files - Show paths of files for which cached meta-data is available.
    • squirrel database nuts - Dump index entry summaries.
    • squirrel database cleanup - Remove leftover volatile data entries.
    • squirrel database remove - Remove cached meta-data of files matching given patterns.
  • squirrel files - Lookup files providing given content selection.
  • squirrel init - Create local environment.
  • squirrel jackseis - Convert waveform archive data.
  • squirrel jackseis-classic - Squirrel's adaption of classic Jackseis.
  • squirrel nuts - Search indexed contents.
  • squirrel operators - Print available operator mappings.
  • squirrel persistent - Manage persistent selections.
  • squirrel scan - Scan and index files and directories.
  • squirrel snuffler - Experimental Squirrel-powered Snuffler.
  • squirrel summon - Fill local cache.
  • squirrel template - Print configuration snippets.
  • squirrel update - Update remote sources inventories.

Common options

Options shared between subcommands are grouped into three categories:

• General options include --loglevel to select the program’s verbosity and --progress to control how progress status is indicated. These are provided by all of Squirrel’s subcommands.

• Data collection options control which files and other data sources should be aggregated to form a dataset. Use the --add option to add files and directories. Further options are available to include/exclude files by regular expression patterns, to restrict to use selected content kinds only (waveform, station, channel, response, event), to create persistent data selections and more. Finally, the --dataset option is provided to configure the dataset conveniently in a YAML file rather than repeatedly with the many command line options. Using --dataset includes the possibility to add online data sources.

• Data query options are used to restrict processing/presentation to a subset of a data collection. They have no influence on the data collection itself, only on what is shown. It is possible to query by time interval (--tmin, --tmax, --time), channel/station code pattern (--codes), and content kinds (--kinds).