Project Items¶

Project Item Properties
Project Item Descriptions

Project items in the Design view and the connections between them make up the graph (Directed Acyclic Graph, DAG) that is executed when the or buttons are pressed.

See Executing Projects for more information on how a DAG is processed by Spine Toolbox. Those interested in looking under the hood can check the Project item development section.

Project Item Properties ¶

Each project item has its own set of Properties. You can view and edit them by selecting a project item on the Design View. The Properties are displayed in the Properties dock widget on the main window. Project item properties are saved into the project save file (project.json), which can be found in <proj_dir>/.spinetoolbox/ directory, where <proj_dir> is your current project directory.

In addition, each project item has it’s own directory in the <proj_dir>/.spinetoolbox/items/ directory. You can quickly open the project item directory in a file explorer by clicking on the button located in the lower right corner of each Properties form.

Project Item Descriptions ¶

The following items are currently available:

Data Store ¶

A Data store item represents a connection to a (Spine) database. Currently, the item supports sqlite and mysql dialects. The database can be accessed and modified in Spine db editor available by double-clicking a Data store on the Design view, from the item’s properties, or from a right-click context menu.

Data Connection ¶

A Data connection item provides access to data files. The item has two categories of files: references connect to files anywhere on the file system while data files reside in the item’s own data directory.

Tool ¶

Tool is the heart of a DAG. It is usually the actual model to be executed in Spine Toolbox but can be an arbitrary script or executable as well. A tool is specified by its specification.

Gimlet ¶

While being able to run most scripts and copyable executables, Tool cannot handle system commands or executables meant to run from system’s path. This is a job for Gimlet. A Gimlet can execute an arbitrary system command with given command line arguments, input files and work directory.

Data Transformer ¶

Data transformers set up database manipulators for successor items in a DAG. They do not transform data themselves; rather, Spine Database API does the transformations configured by Data transformers when the database is accessed. Currently supported transformations include entity class and parameter renaming.