DSPL Tools

DSPL Tools is a small suite of command-line utilities designed to help generate, organize, and validate DSPL datasets. The suite currently includes the following components:

  • DSPL Check: Checks a dataset against a variety of criteria including adherence to the official DSPL schema, consistency of internal references, and CSV layout.
  • DSPL Gen: Generates a simple, DSPL dataset "template" from an input CSV file

This software is released under a BSD license; the full source code is available for browsing and download on GitHub. Release notes are provided in the DSPL Tools README file.

The section below describes how to install DSPL Tools. Once this is done, you can run the individual utilities within the bundle. Follow the links above for more information.

Note: The directions below and on the linked subpages assume that you have a basic familiarity with the command-line environment on your system (e.g., you can get to the terminal / command-prompt, change directories, express file paths, etc.).

Installing DSPL Tools

DSPL Tools is written in Python, a cross-platform, open source scripting language. To set up, complete the following steps:

  1. Install a Python interpreter (version 2.6 or 2.7), if required:
    • Windows: Download and run the "Windows x86 MSI Installer" found on this page.
    • Mac OS X: Python is installed by default, but you may need to upgrade to a more recent version. See this page for details.
    • Linux: Python is usually installed by default, but you may need to upgrade to a more recent version. Consult the documentation for your specific distribution.
  2. Install DSPL Tools:
    1. Download and extract the DSPL Tools zip bundle from the DSPL open source site.
    2. Open a terminal / command-prompt window, navigate to the top-level directory of the extracted zip file, and run: 
      python setup.py install
       You may need to provide a full path to the Python executable; see step 3 below for details.
  3. (Optional) Extend your system path to include the Python interpreter executable and the files dsplcheck.py and dsplgen.py.
    • If this step is skipped, you may have to give full paths on these components when running the tools, e.g. (on Windows) c:\python27\python instead of just python.
    • The instructions for doing this vary from machine to machine. Consult your system documentation for guidance.

Some miscellaneous notes and caveats:

  • DSPL Tools will not work with Python versions earlier than 2.6 or later than 2.7.
  • You may need to be logged in as an administrator on your machine to run the steps above.