matplotlib-devel Mailing List for matplotlib

sam tygier wrote:
> 
> That is one method that i have used, but i don't think it is ideal. My data can be a wide range of things,
> sometimes the coordinates of a bunch of many particles, sometimes the track of one. If I save just an array
 > of numbers it can get a bit confusing. So it would be useful to be 
able to save everything needed to make the plot.
> 
You could use a file format made for scientific data storage, such as 
netCDF or HDF5.
To use netCDF files from Python you can use either ScientificPython ( 
http://dirac.cnrs-orleans.fr/plone/software/scientificpython/ ) or 
Pupynere http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pupynere/
ScientificPython is bigger and more general, Pupynere is lightweight but 
 you can run into some bugs.
For HDF5 you can use PyTables (http://www.pytables.org/).
These file types can store not only the data itself, but also it's type, 
name, units, and any other property you might like, for an arbitrary 
number of data sets. For some fields there are naming conventions 
conventions to guide you (ex: 
http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/documents/cf-conventions/1.0/cf-conventions.html ).
João Silva