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:

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

Java4eurostat uses Apache Maven. To use java4eurostat, add it as a dependency to the pom.xml file:

<dependency>
    <groupId>eu.europa.ec.eurostat</groupId>
    <artifactId>java4eurostat</artifactId>
    <version>X.Y.Z</version>
</dependency>

Where X.Y.Z is the latest version number, as available Maven central repository.

For more information on how to setup a coding environment based on Eclipse, see this page.

Documentation

See the Javadoc API.

Load/save data

CSV

Statistical data such as:

country,gender,year,population
Brasil,Male,2013,45.1
Brasil,Female,2013,48.3
Japan,Total,2013,93.4
...

Can be simply loaded and saved with:

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

For tabular data with several value columns such as:

country,gender,year,2010,2015,2020
Brasil,Male,2013,45.1,45.1,45.1
Brasil,Total,2013,93.4,45.1,45.1
Japan,Male,2014,46.2,45.1,45.1
...

Just use:

//load
StatsHypercube hc = CSV.loadMultiValues("C:\datafolder\myFile.csv", "year", "2010", "2015", "2020");
//save
CSV.saveMultiValues(hc, "C:\datafolder\myFile.csv", "year")

TSV and 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").

JSON-stat

For JSON-stat data, simply use:

//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)

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.

Base data structures

The base classes are Stat and StatsHypercube. A Stat object represents a statistical value, which is stored as an element of the StatsHypercube structure.

A Stat object is characterised by its value (of course) and its position in the hypercube, which is represented as 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 and selection

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.]

The class Selection provide various ways to navigate in the hypercube structure hy selecting specific values based on various criteria.

Operations

Operations can be quickly applied on statistical values of a hypercube, such as:

//divide all values by 100.
hc.div(100);
//add 0.185 to all values.
hc.add(0.185);

It is also possible to combine values of two hypercubes for example:

//get population data for 2020 and 2010
StatsHypercube hcPop2020 = ...;
StatsHypercube hcPop2010 = ...;
//compute population change
StatsHypercube hcPopChange = hcPop2020.diff(hcPop2010);

These operation can easily be combined:

//get population data for 2020 and 2010
StatsHypercube hcPop2020 = ...;
StatsHypercube hcPop2010 = ...;
//compute population rate of change, in percentage
StatsHypercube hcPopRateOfChange = hcPop2020.diff(hcPop2010).div(hcPop2010).mult(100);

New statistical values can also be computed from existing hypercube values. For example, to compute the total value along a dimension age_group:

//get population data by age group
StatsHypercube hcPopByAge = ...;
Collection<Stat> totals = Operations.computeSumDim(hcPopByAge, "age_group", "TOTAL");
hcPopByAge.stats.addAll(totals);

More operations are available from the Operations class. Custom unary, binary or aggregation operators can be implemented.

Compacity

The class Compacity provides various methods to analyse how full/empty the hypercube structure is. This compacity computation can be restrictied to single dimensions, which gives a good overview of the completness of the input data and along which dimension it is worth focussing on. See for example the Compacity.getDimensionValuesByCompacity method.

Validation

The class Validation provides various methods to check the compliance of the dimension codes with some specified values (Validation.Compacity.checkDimensionValuesValidity method). The Validation.Compacity.checkUnicity methods also checks the unicity of statistical values per position in the hypercube.

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.]

Support and contribution

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