Saving and loading data (scipy.io) - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Saving and loading data (scipy.io)

📖 Scenario: You have collected some simple data from a small experiment. You want to save this data to a file so you can use it later without typing it again. Then, you want to load the saved data back into your program to check it.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to save a dictionary of data to a file using scipy.io.savemat and then load it back using scipy.io.loadmat.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary with specific data arrays

Save the dictionary to a .mat file using scipy.io.savemat

Load the data back from the .mat file using scipy.io.loadmat

Print the loaded data to verify it matches the original

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Scientists and engineers often save experimental data in .mat files to share and analyze later without re-running experiments.

💼 Career

Knowing how to save and load data files is essential for data scientists and researchers to manage data efficiently and reproduce results.

1

Create a dictionary with experiment data

Create a dictionary called experiment_data with two keys: 'temperature' and 'pressure'. Set 'temperature' to the list [22.1, 23.4, 21.8] and 'pressure' to the list [101.2, 100.8, 101.5].

SciPy

# Create the dictionary experiment_data with temperature and pressure lists
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use curly braces {} to create a dictionary. The keys are strings and the values are lists of numbers.

2

Set the filename to save the data

Create a variable called filename and set it to the string 'experiment.mat' which will be the name of the file to save the data.

SciPy

experiment_data = {'temperature': [22.1, 23.4, 21.8], 'pressure': [101.2, 100.8, 101.5]}
# Create the filename variable with 'experiment.mat'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use quotes to create a string for the filename.

3

Save the dictionary to a .mat file

Import savemat from scipy.io. Then use savemat to save experiment_data to the file named filename.

SciPy

experiment_data = {'temperature': [22.1, 23.4, 21.8], 'pressure': [101.2, 100.8, 101.5]}
filename = 'experiment.mat'
# Import savemat from scipy.io
# Use savemat to save experiment_data to filename
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use from scipy.io import savemat to import. Then call savemat(filename, experiment_data).

4

Load the data back and print it

Import loadmat from scipy.io. Load the data from filename into a variable called loaded_data. Then print loaded_data.

SciPy

from scipy.io import savemat

experiment_data = {'temperature': [22.1, 23.4, 21.8], 'pressure': [101.2, 100.8, 101.5]}
filename = 'experiment.mat'
savemat(filename, experiment_data)
# Import loadmat from scipy.io
# Load the data from filename into loaded_data
# Print loaded_data
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use loaded_data = loadmat(filename) and then print(loaded_data). The output will include extra keys like '__header__'.