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A FlexPro project database is organized like a file system on your hard drive. You can organize your data, analyses and presentations into any number of folders and subfolders. By doing this you can separate data of different measurements in the appropriate folders, for instance. The size of this type of database is only limited by the hard drive space and can take up many gigabytes. When you save a database, you can specify whether it should be saved complete in one single file on the hard drive or whether a separate file should be created for each object. The second method is particularly ideal for large amounts of data. When opening an existing database, you can specify whether you want to open it directly or if you want to work on a backup copy. When opening it directly, changes are immediately implemented in the database, and when working with a copy, changes only take effect when you save the database. In general, FlexPro handles databases as regular documents, which means that you do not notice that you are working with a database. For instance, when you start FlexPro, you immediately get an empty database and can start working with it right away.
FlexPro saves all data organized in datasets. This type of dataset can be, for instance, a channel of a measurement system or a column in an external database. Each dataset can contain data as whole numbers, floating point numbers, Boolean values, date and time or strings. The size is only limited by the hard drive space. FlexPro has no problem with non-equidistant data and non-monotonically increasing data. FlexPro can also store and process complex data. You can mark invalid values as such so that they are ignored during rendering and analysis. FlexPro processes large datasets directly from the hard disk instead of loading them into memory. Datasets can have different data structures. In addition to scalar values, vectors and matrices, FlexPro can also manage composite data structures such as signals with Y and X components. In the header of a dataset, a physical unit and a comment can be entered for each component. Using FlexPro for analysis is easy because the FlexPro Y, X and even Z components, when applicable, can be compiled into a single dataset. FlexPro can actually simultaneously process Y and X components in a single analysis statement.
Every object in the database, including folders, can contain any number of parameters. For instance, environmental variables for a measurement analysis can be stored here.
In addition to the folder and list views with which you are already familiar from Windows Explorer, FlexPro Explorer offers data view as a display option. In the data view, data from datasets within the currently open folder are displayed in a grid. The data view is especially ideal for entering data manually. If you have stored X and Y components in separate datasets, you can quickly organize them here by simply arranging the columns accordingly.
The search function is especially important in working with large databases. Here you can quickly search for a dataset with the unit "V" for instance, whose maximum value is greater than 200. The search results are displayed in a separate window and can be immediately processed.
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