Output file naming#

Files are named {output_prefix}.{timestamp}.out where the timestamp is formatted using output_timestamp_format (default: "%Y-%m-%d-{S}") and applied to the analysis time — the centre of the window, which is also the model’s stopping time. This a DART convention, filter assimilates the observations in a window centered on the analysis time, so the observation sequence file is named obs_seq.$analysis_time.

The special token {S} is replaced with seconds-of-day (0–86400, zero-padded to 5 digits), following DART-CESM typical obs_seq naming convention. All other tokens follow Python strftime format.

Analysis time

Window

Default filename

2010-05-01 06:00

(03:00, 09:00]

obs_seq.2010-05-01-21600.out

2010-05-01 12:00

(09:00, 15:00]

obs_seq.2010-05-01-43200.out

2010-05-01 18:00

(15:00, 21:00]

obs_seq.2010-05-01-64800.out

2010-05-02 00:00

(05-01 21:00, 05-02 03:00]

obs_seq.2010-05-02-00000.out

To use a custom format (e.g. DART’s compact YYYYMMDDHH):

config = ObsGenConfig(..., output_timestamp_format="%Y%m%d%H")
# produces: obs_seq.2010050100.out, obs_seq.2010050106.out, ...