Acquire / file · All operations

Read a table saved by a data tool

A variant of Read another file format

Read back a table or project stored in a data tool's own saved format.

Status

In arcform

Not built yet

arcform does not do this yet. Its place on the roadmap

What other tools call it

Meridian's classification; an independent blind rating agreed on 95.7% of 324 rows (variant, version 3).

Alteryx Designer (1)
  • Profile Inputread 2026-09-27

    Read a behaviour Profile Set file as input

Apache Hop (1)
EasyMorph (1)
  • Import datasetread 2026-09-27

    Read a table from EasyMorph's native .dset file

KNIME Analytics Platform (1)
  • Table Readerread 2026-09-27

    Read a table stored in KNIME's native .table format

OpenRefine (1)
  • Import Projectread 2026-09-27

    Load an exported project archive (.tar.gz) as a new project, with its full change history

Pentaho Data Integration (1)
Polars (1)
RapidMiner Studio (3)
  • Retrieveread 2026-09-27

    Load a stored object (data table, model, result) from the repository into the process

  • Retrieve from Custom Extensionread 2026-09-27

    Load a stored object packaged inside a custom extension

  • Retrieve from Fileread 2026-09-27

    Deserialise a stored object (data, model, result) from a file object

VisiData (1)
  • vds (loader)read 2026-09-23

    Load VisiData multi-sheet save file

Background

In KNIME, the Table Reader node reads files written in an internal format by the Table Writer node, retaining meta information such as domain and properties.[1] In OpenRefine, an exported project includes all of its history, so whoever imports it can see and undo the previous user's changes.[2]

When to use it

Polars' DataFrame.deserialize reads a serialised DataFrame from a file, in a binary format by default.[3] Polars serialisation is not stable across Polars versions, so a frame serialised in one Polars version may not be deserialisable in another.[3] Treat a tool's own saved file as a hand-off between runs of the same tool, and export to an open format for anything meant to last. (Meridian's view)

OpenRefine only exports projects as .tar.gz files.[2] When OpenRefine is used to anonymise information, only the cleaned dataset should be exported and shared, because the project archive keeps the original data and its history of edits.[2]

The method

OpenRefine imports a project archive like a new project and saves its information to the workspace directory.[2] An exported OpenRefine project is essentially a point-in-time snapshot of its author's work.[2] Note which version of the tool wrote a saved file, so that it can be read back with one that understands it. (Meridian's view)

Sources

  1. [1]Table Readerdocumentation
  2. [2]Starting a project | OpenRefinedocumentation
  3. [3]polars.DataFrame.deserialize — Polars documentationdocumentation