idf2yaml is a package that converts IDF files for the EnergyPlus simulation software to YAML format and vice versa. This package allows users to easily convert between these two formats, enabling to work with EnergyPlus models with yaml tooling.

idf2yaml is built upon the libraries eppy🔗 and ruamel.yaml🔗.

The package consists of two functions, idf2yaml and yaml2idf, which convert IDF files to YAML format and YAML files (if, of course, appropriately populated) to IDF format, respectively.

The following quickstart script shows how to use the package:

from idf2yaml import idf2yaml, yaml2idf, DEFAULT_IDD

# Convert IDF to YAML
yaml_string = idf2yaml(
    "example.idf",              # path to the IDF file
    idd=DEFAULT_IDD,            # path to the IDD file
    skip_empty=True,            # if True, attributes not explicitly set in the IDF will not appear
    output_path="output.yaml"   # can be None if only the string is needed
)

# Convert YAML file back to IDF
idf_string_file = yaml2idf(
    "output.yaml",              # path to the yaml file
    idd=DEFAULT_IDD,            # path to the IDD file
    output_path="output.idf",   # can be None if only the string is needed
)

# Convert YAML string back to IDF
idf_string_string = yaml2idf(
    yaml_string,                # string representing the yaml content
    idd=DEFAULT_IDD,            # path to the IDD file
    output_path="output.idf",   # can be None if only the string is needed
)

# The result is the same
assert idf_string_file == idf_string_string

The tool has a command line entry point as well.

python -m idf2yaml --help

The conversion from IDF to YAML includes useful annotations for the attributes, such as

• Physical units
• Default values
• Numeric range (min->max)
• Set of possible choices for categoricals [opt1|opt2|opt3]

These are derived from the EnergyPlus IDD (Input Data Dictionary) file, which works as a specification of the IDF file format and is used throughout the package for decoding and emission.

Note

The parsing and emission performed by this package is always just as good as the IDD file. DEFAULT_IDD is directly derived from the official EnergyPlus repo and should work fine for the most recent versions of EnergyPlus.

Tip

For advanced users: you can customize the yaml annotation by monkey patching the make_help_string function, which is exposed as well.