Quick Start

CAF.van is provided as a Python package and a command-line utility. The command-line utility can be used to run the complete caf.van process without using Python directly. This should be used for most use-cases. To interact directly with caf.van’s underlying functionality, it can be imported and called directly from Python, see Usage for details.

CAF.van can be installed from pip, conda-forge or pipx (when using as a command-line utility).

Pip

Installing through pip is easy and can be done in one command: pip install caf.van

conda-forge

Installing through conda-forge is easy and can be done in one command: conda install caf.van -c conda-forge

Pipx

Pipx is the recommended way to use caf.van as a utility. It handles installing the tool in its own container, and makes it easy to access from a terminal.

First install pipx into your default Python environment using pip or conda, see Pipx’s installation instructions for more details.

Once pipx is installed and setup caf.toolkit can be installed using pipx install caf.van, this should make it available in command-line anywhere using caf.van ....

See also

Pipx Getting started for more information about using pipx.

Usage

The tool should be run from the command-line and a configuration (YAML) file to pass the inputs. The command to call the tool is: python -m caf.van -c path/to/config.yaml

CAF.van provides a command-line interface (CLI) for running the van model. The below details the basic usage and arguments for running from the command line, the details for the inputs and methodology are outlined in Tool Usage.

CLI

Module for running the LGV model.

usage: caf.van [-h] [-c CONFIG_FILE] [-e]

Named Arguments

-c, --config_file

Path to configuration file containing all LGV model inputs

-e, --example

If given will write an example config file to the current working directory

Default: False

Python

When using CAF.van functionality within Python:

import caf.van as cvan

The Tool Usage contains Tutorials and Code Examples, which explain available functionality. For a detailed look at the package API see API Reference.