Reading files¶

mscompress.read() is the one entry point you usually need. It detects the file type and returns either an MZMLFile or an MSZFile:

import mscompress

with mscompress.read("anything.mzML") as f:
    ...

with mscompress.read("anything.msz") as f:
    ...

Both file classes share the same BaseFile interface (see the reference), so most code is type-agnostic.

Direct construction¶

When you know the type up front:

mzml = mscompress.MZMLFile("data.mzML")
msz  = mscompress.MSZFile("data.msz")

File-level metadata¶

with mscompress.read("data.msz") as f:
    print(f.path)            # path on disk
    print(f.filesize)        # bytes
    print(f.format)          # DataFormat — source/target encodings, scale factors
    print(len(f.spectra))    # total spectrum count

Resource cleanup¶

Always use a with block. Spectra hold references back into the file's memory mapping; reading them after the file is closed will raise.

Format detection details¶

read() inspects the first few bytes of the file to find the MSZ magic tag (0x035F51B5); anything else is assumed to be mzML and validated by the parser as it reads. MSZX archives (.mszx) are opened with MSZXFile directly, not via read().