PyA permanent — Configuration and Data¶
The pyaPermanent package is a core module of PyAstronomy. Its purpose is to manage content, which shall be permanently available to PyA, but may be created or added dynamically; examples comprise configuration and newly downloaded data.
What gets stored where?¶
To store the data, PyA requires a directory (in the following the “data directory”) to which it has write access. Such a directory can be assigned (and created) at the first call to a method, which demands access to it. By default, PyA will suggest to use a subdirectory of your home directory, but this choice can be modified. If an appropriate directory has been assigned to PyA, a single file in your home directory will be created (named “.pyaConfigWhere”), which contains a single line, which points PyA to its data directory; unfortunately, this cannot be avoided, because PyA needs one point, which it can find without any additional information.
In PyA’s data directory, the file “pyaConfig.cfg” holds the “root configuration” for PyA. Other modules may add own content, usually in subdirectories.
How to use it?¶
Of course, you can directly access the files in PyA’s data path. However, PyA provides some useful classes, which offer some additional convenience and maybe “bug security”. PyA packages will use these to access the data directory:
