Tab Normalize

The Normalize tab combines individual measurement data into a single file. The combined file can be cleaned up using various tasks. Furthermore, possible *.qml (QGIS) styles can be copied to a defined output folder.

1. Open Normalize
   Click to open the Normalize tool.

2. Select input files
   Choose your input files from your hard drive. Supported file extensions are *.dat and *.txt.

3. Select the output folder
   Select the folder where the combined data will be saved.

   Use the same output folder in the Process tab for all generated *.shp files.

4. Name your output file
   Give your output file a meaningful name.

   If you specify a name here, it will also be used in the Process tab for naming the generated GeoPackage.

5. Add optional QML files
   If you have a folder containing *.qml files (optionally with an svg subfolder), you can select it here. The tool will copy these files to your output folder. If a *.qml file matches the name of a generated GIS layer, it will automatically be applied to the layer when loaded in QGIS.

6. Replace special characters
   The replacement rules work as follows:

   1. When the replace field (8) is empty:
      • Example: search=”&”, replace=”” → “&” is deleted from the file
   2. When no spaces in both fields (7)(8):
      • Example: search=”&”, replace=”$” → “&” is replaced with “$”
      • The strings are treated and replaced as a whole
   3. When spaces are present (character by character replacement):
      • Example with matching length: search=”d o g s”, replace=”c a t s” →
        • “d” is replaced with “c”
        • “o” is replaced with “a”
        • “g” is replaced with “t”
        • ”s” is replaced with “s”
      • Example:

        Input:  "The dogs run"
        Output: "The cats run"
        

      • Example with different length: search=”d o g s”, replace=”c a t” →
        • “d” is replaced with “c”
        • “o” is replaced with “a”
        • “g” is replaced with “t”
        • ”s” remains unchanged (no replacement character available)
      • Example:

        Input:  "The dogs run"
        Output: "The cats run"
        

   These rules allow for deletion of characters, complete replacements, and character-by-character replacements with multiple characters.

7. Renumber input lines
   This option rewrites all lines to start from 1 and increment to N.

8. Define additional fields
   If your parser defines fields that are not present in your input data but are required, specify them here. Each space represents a column in the merged output and will be inserted directly after the line number. Don’t forget a space after the last word, otherwise the characters are directly placed before the next word.

   Original line in input file:
   1 1_1 x…
   
   020_21 1_ with space at the end will become:
   1 2020_21 1_ 1_1 x…
   
   2020_21 1_ without space at the end will become:
   1 2020_21 1_1_1 x…
   

9. Start the process
   A button click starts the process. Errors will be written to Tab Logs.

10. Save settings
    When checked your configuration of tab Normalize will be saved.