You can store and then restore various OpenCV data structures to/from XML (http://www.w3c.org/XML) or YAML
(http://www.yaml.org) formats. Also, it is possible store and load arbitrarily complex data structures, which include OpenCV data structures, as well as primitive data types (integer and floating-point numbers and text strings) as their elements.
Use the following procedure to write something to XML or YAML:
#. Create new :ocv:class:`FileStorage` and open it for writing. It can be done with a single call to :ocv:func:`FileStorage::FileStorage` constructor that takes a filename, or you can use the default constructor and then call :ocv:func:`FileStorage::open`. Format of the file (XML or YAML) is determined from the filename extension (".xml" and ".yml"/".yaml", respectively)
fs << "{:" << "x" << x << "y" << y << "lbp" << "[:";
for( int j = 0; j < 8; j++ )
fs << ((lbp >> j) & 1);
fs << "]" << "}";
}
fs << "]";
fs.release();
return 0;
}
The sample above stores to XML and integer, text string (calibration date), 2 matrices, and a custom structure "feature", which includes feature coordinates and LBP (local binary pattern) value. Here is output of the sample:
As an exercise, you can replace ".yml" with ".xml" in the sample above and see, how the corresponding XML file will look like.
Several things can be noted by looking at the sample code and the output:
*
The produced YAML (and XML) consists of heterogeneous collections that can be nested. There are 2 types of collections: named collections (mappings) and unnamed collections (sequences). In mappings each element has a name and is accessed by name. This is similar to structures and ``std::map`` in C/C++ and dictionaries in Python. In sequences elements do not have names, they are accessed by indices. This is similar to arrays and ``std::vector`` in C/C++ and lists, tuples in Python. "Heterogeneous" means that elements of each single collection can have different types.
Top-level collection in YAML/XML is a mapping. Each matrix is stored as a mapping, and the matrix elements are stored as a sequence. Then, there is a sequence of features, where each feature is represented a mapping, and lbp value in a nested sequence.
When you write to a mapping (a structure), you write element name followed by its value. When you write to a sequence, you simply write the elements one by one. OpenCV data structures (such as cv::Mat) are written in absolutely the same way as simple C data structures - using **``<<``** operator.
To write a mapping, you first write the special string **"{"** to the storage, then write the elements as pairs (``fs << <element_name> << <element_value>``) and then write the closing **"}"**.
In YAML (but not XML), mappings and sequences can be written in a compact Python-like inline form. In the sample above matrix elements, as well as each feature, including its lbp value, is stored in such inline form. To store a mapping/sequence in a compact form, put ":" after the opening character, e.g. use **"{:"** instead of **"{"** and **"[:"** instead of **"["**. When the data is written to XML, those extra ":" are ignored.
Reading data from a file storage.
---------------------------------
To read the previously written XML or YAML file, do the following:
#.
Open the file storage using :ocv:func:`FileStorage::FileStorage` constructor or :ocv:func:`FileStorage::open` method. In the current implementation the whole file is parsed and the whole representation of file storage is built in memory as a hierarchy of file nodes (see :ocv:class:`FileNode`)
:param source:Name of the file to open or the text string to read the data from. Extension of the file (``.xml`` or ``.yml``/``.yaml``) determines its format (XML or YAML respectively). Also you can append ``.gz`` to work with compressed files, for example ``myHugeMatrix.xml.gz``. If both ``FileStorage::WRITE`` and ``FileStorage::MEMORY`` flags are specified, ``source`` is used just to specify the output file format (e.g. ``mydata.xml``, ``.yml`` etc.).
Call this method after all I/O operations with the storage are finished. If the storage was opened for writing data and ``FileStorage::WRITE`` was specified
:param streamidx:Zero-based index of the stream. In most cases there is only one stream in the file. However, YAML supports multiple streams and so there can be several.
:returns:The top-level mapping.
FileStorage::operator[]
-----------------------
Returns the specified element of the top-level mapping.
:param fmt:Specification of each array element that has the following format ``([count]{'u'|'c'|'w'|'s'|'i'|'f'|'d'})...`` where the characters correspond to fundamental C++ types:
``count`` is the optional counter of values of a given type. For example, ``2if`` means that each array element is a structure of 2 integers, followed by a single-precision floating-point number. The equivalent notations of the above specification are ' ``iif`` ', ' ``2i1f`` ' and so forth. Other examples: ``u`` means that the array consists of bytes, and ``2d`` means the array consists of pairs of doubles.
:param vec:Pointer to the written array.
:param len:Number of the ``uchar`` elements to write.
Writes one or more numbers of the specified format to the currently written structure. Usually it is more convenient to use :ocv:func:`operator <<` instead of this method.
FileStorage::writeObj
---------------------
Writes the registered C structure (CvMat, CvMatND, CvSeq).
File Storage Node class. The node is used to store each and every element of the file storage opened for reading. When XML/YAML file is read, it is first parsed and stored in the memory as a hierarchical collection of nodes. Each node can be a “leaf” that is contain a single number or a string, or be a collection of other nodes. There can be named collections (mappings) where each element has a name and it is accessed by a name, and ordered collections (sequences) where elements do not have names but rather accessed by index. Type of the file node can be determined using :ocv:func:`FileNode::type` method.
Note that file nodes are only used for navigating file storages opened for reading. When a file storage is opened for writing, no data is stored in memory after it is written.
The class ``FileNodeIterator`` is used to iterate through sequences and mappings. A standard STL notation, with ``node.begin()``, ``node.end()`` denoting the beginning and the end of a sequence, stored in ``node``. See the data reading sample in the beginning of the section.
