Configuration

ChaosMagPy internally uses a number of parameters and coefficient/data files, whose numerical values and filepaths are stored in a dictionary-like container, called basicConfig. Usually, the content of it need not be changed. However, if for example one wishes to compute a time series of the external field beyond the limit of the builtin RC-index file, then ChaosMagPy can be configured to use an updates RC-index file.

To view the parameters in basicConfig, do the following:

import chaosmagpy as cp

print(cp.basicConfig)

This will print a list of the parameters than can in principle be changed. For example, it contains Earth’s surface radius params.r_surf, which is used as reference radius for the spherical harmonic representation of the magnetic potential field. For a complete list, see Configuration Utilities.

Change RC index file

Note

Find more information about why this may be necessary in the documentation of synth_coeffs_sm().

With the latest version of the CHAOS model, it is recommended to use the latest version of the RC-index that can be downloaded as TXT-file (*.dat) from the RC website at spacecenter.dk, or by using the function save_RC_h5file() (locally saves the RC-index TXT-file as HDF5-file):

import chaosmagpy as cp

cp.data_utils.save_RC_h5file('my_RC_file.h5')

There is no significant difference in speed when using TXT-file or HDF5-file formats in this case. After importing ChaosMagPy, provide the path to the new RC-index file:

cp.basicConfig['file.RC_index'] = './my_RC_file.h5'

This should be done at the top of the script after the import statements, otherwise ChaosMagPy uses the builtin RC-index file.

If you use are using an older version of CHAOS-7, and are interested in the external field part of that model, it is recommended to use the RC file from the archive at the bottom of the CHAOS-7 website associated with the specific version of CHAOS-7 that you are using.

Save and load custom configuration

The configuration values can also be read from and written to a simple text file in json format.

For the correct format, it is best to change the configuration parameters during a python session and then save them to a file. For example, the following code sets the Earth’s surface radius to 6371 km (there is no reason to do this except for the sake of this example):

import chaosmagpy as cp

cp.basicConfig['params.r_surf'] = 6371

Then save the configuration dictionary to a file:

cp.basicConfig.save('myconfig.json')

To load this configuration file, use the following at the start of the script:

cp.basicConfig.load('myconfig.json')