fagan2888 / java4eurostat

Multi-dimensional data manipulation and easy access to Eurostat data. In Java.

java4eurostat

Java4eurostat is a Java library for statistical data manipulation. It provides a number of functions to load statistical data into an 'hypercube' structure and index it for easy and fast in-memory computations. A number of specific functions are provided to easily access Eurostat data.

Quick start

Let's start with a simple dataset:

country	gender	year	population
Brasil	Male	2013	45.1
Brasil	Female	2013	48.3
Brasil	Total	2013	93.4
Brasil	Male	2014	46.2
Brasil	Female	2014	47.7
Brasil	Total	2014	93.9
Japan	Male	2013	145.1
Japan	Female	2013	148.3
Japan	Total	2013	293.4
Japan	Male	2014	146.2
Japan	Female	2014	147.7
Japan	Total	2014	293.9

stored as a CSV file example.csv:

country,gender,year,population
Brasil,Male,2013,45.1
Brasil,Female,2013,48.3
Brasil,Total,2013,93.4
Brasil,Male,2014,46.2
Brasil,Female,2014,47.7
Brasil,Total,2014,93.9
Japan,Male,2013,145.1
Japan,Female,2013,148.3
Japan,Total,2013,293.4
Japan,Male,2014,146.2
Japan,Female,2014,147.7
Japan,Total,2014,293.9

This file can be loaded into an hypercube structure with:

StatsHypercube hc = CSV.load("example.csv", "population");

Information on the hypercube structure is shown with hc.printInfo();, which returns:

Information: 12 value(s) with 3 dimension(s).
   Dimension: gender (3 dimension values)
      Female
      Male
      Total
   Dimension: year (2 dimension values)
      2013
      2014
   Dimension: country (2 dimension values)
      Brasil
      Japan

Several input formats are supported. For example, Eurostat data can be loaded directly from the web. For that, only the database code given in Eurostat databases catalog is required. For example, the database on HICP - Country weights (code prc_hicp_cow) can be downloaded and loaded simply with:

StatsHypercube hc2 = EurobaseIO.getData("prc_hicp_cow");

The structure returned with a hc2.printInfo(); is:

Information: 2001 value(s) with 3 dimension(s).
   Dimension: time (21 dimension values)
      1996
      1997
      1998
      ...
   Dimension: geo (35 dimension values)
      AT
      BE
      BG
      ...
   Dimension: statinfo (6 dimension values)
      COWEA
      COWEA18
      COWEA19
      ...

Once loaded, data can be filtered/selected. For example, hc.selectDimValueEqualTo("country","Brasil") selects data for Brasil and hc.selectValueGreaterThan(147) selects data with values greater than 147. Selection criteria can be combined in cascade like hc.selectDimValueEqualTo("country","Brasil").selectDimValueGreaterThan("year",2012) for the selection of Brasil data after 2012. Logical operators 'AND', 'OR' and 'NOT' can also be used to build more complex selection criteria. Totally generic selection criteria can be specified such as:

hc.select(new Criteria(){
	@Override
	public boolean keep(Stat stat) {
		return stat.dims.get("country").contains("r") && Math.sqrt(stat.value)>7;
	}
});

which selects all statistics with country names containing a "r" character, and whose root square value is greater than 7.

A single value can be retrieved with for example hc.selectDimValueEqualTo("country", "Japan", "gender", "Total", "year", "2014").stats.iterator().next().value but the fastest way to retrieve a value and scan a dataset is to use an index with:

StatsIndex index = new StatsIndex(hc,"gender","year","country");

This index is a tree structure based on the dimension values. This structure can be displayed with index.print();:

Total
   2014
      Brasil -> 93.9
      Japan -> 293.9
   2013
      Brasil -> 93.4
      Japan -> 293.4
Male
   2014
      Brasil -> 46.2
      Japan -> 146.2
   2013
      Brasil -> 45.1
      Japan -> 145.1
Female
   2014
      Brasil -> 47.7
      Japan -> 147.7
   2013
      Brasil -> 48.3
      Japan -> 148.3

A statistical value is accessed quickly from the index and its dimension values: double value = index.getSingleValue("Total","2014","Japan");. Scanning a full dataset across its dimensions is very fast with:

for(String gender : index.getKeys())
	for(String year : index.getKeys(gender))
		for(String country : index.getKeys(gender,year)) {
			System.out.println(gender +" "+year+" "+country);
			System.out.println(index.getSingleValue(gender,year,country));
		}

More information

Setup

To quickly setup a development environment, see these instructions.

Download and install Java4eurostat with:

git clone https://github.com/eurostat/java4eurostat.git
cd java4eurostat
mvn clean install

and then use it in your Java project as a dependency by adding it to the pom.xml file:

<dependencies>
	...
	<dependency>
		<groupId>eu.europa.ec.eurostat</groupId>
		<artifactId>java4eurostat</artifactId>
		<version>1.3</version>
	</dependency>
</dependencies>

Input data

CSV

//load
StatsHypercube hc = CSV.load("example.csv", "population");
//save
CSV.save(hc, "C:\datafolder\", "dataset.csv");

JSON-stat

See here for more information on this format.

//load
String jsonStatString = '{"version":"2.0", "class":"dataset", "label":"Population data", "source":"", "id":[...], "size":[...], "dimension":{...}, "value":[...]}';
StatsHypercube hc = JSONStat.load(jsonStatString);
//save
//  not implemented (yet)

Eurostat data

The class EurobaseIO provides several functions to handle Eurostat data. For example: StatsHypercube hc = EurobaseIO.getData("prc_hicp_cow"); loads the database prc_hicp_cow. Selection parameters may also be specified: getData("prc_hicp_cow", "geo", "EU", "geo", "EA", "time", "2016") returns loads database prc_hicp_cow figures for 2016, for both EU and EA. Additionnaly, getData("prc_hicp_cow", "lastTimePeriod", "4") return the figures for the 4 last time periods, while getData("prc_hicp_cow", "sinceTimePeriod", "2005") returns all figures since 2005.

Eurostat TSV files can be downloaded manually from the bulk download facility or using:

//download from Eurostat bulk download facility
EurobaseIO.getDataBulkDownload("eurobase_code","/home/datafolder/");
//load
StatsHypercube hc = EurostatTSV.load("/home/datafolder/eurobase_code.tsv");
//save
//  not implemented (yet)

The last publication date of a database can be retrieved with getUpdateDate: For example, EurobaseIO.getUpdateDate("prc_hicp_cow"); returns the last publication date of the database with code prc_hicp_cow.

In case of regular use of some Eurostat databases as TSV files, these files can be downloaded and updated only when new data is published. For example:

EurobaseIO.update("C:/my_data_folder/", "my_database_code1", "my_database_code2", "my_database_code3", ...);

retrieves new files my_database_code1.tsv, my_database_code2.tsv and my_database_code3.tsv only when they has been updated. This function creates a file update.txt in C:/my_data_folder/ folder, which gives the last update dates of the files.

Code list dictionnaries are loaded with for example EurobaseIO.getDictionnary("geo") which retrieve the dictionnary of geographical locations (code geo). EurobaseIO.getDictionnary("geo").get("IT") returns "Italy". Last update dates are retreved with for example getDictionnaryUpdateDate("geo").

Filtering on loading

To ensure an efficient usage of memory, a selection criteria can be specified when loading from a data source. For example, StatsHypercube hc = EurobaseIO.getData("prc_hicp_cow", new DimValueEqualTo("geo","BG")) loads only data for country BG.

Basic data structures

The base classes are Stat and StatsHypercube. A Stat object represents a statistical values, element of a StatsHypercube object.

A Stat object is characterised by its value (of course) and a dictionnary of pairs (dimension label, dimension value), which represents its coordinates within the hypercube. Flags can also be attached to a statistical value. The class StatsHypercube is simply characterised by its collection of Stat elements and dimension names.

[TODO: describe HierarchicalCode]

Data access

Data of a hypercube are accessed using either the StatsHypercube.select() method or a StatsIndex object. Access with a StatsIndex is faster, but requires the construction of an index object, which can be resource consumming.

Basic operations based on selection and indexing are presented in the quick start section above.

[TODO: extend description.]

Time series analysis

The class TimeSeriesUtil provides several function for time series analysis such as the computation of moving averages, gap analysis and outlier values detection.

[TODO: extend description.]

Further documentation

See the documentation for more information.

Support and contribution

Feel free to ask support, fork the project or simply star it (it's always a pleasure).