How to build an interface to my data?

[atoasttoall]

I've long been planning to create an interface which provides an overview of my data. I'm not sure how to get started so I'm looking for advice.

I'm a numerical relativist and I do a lot of simulations. I organize these by running in directories which I label by date. These directories contain the input files that setup the run and the output that results.

The code that we use is in an svn repository and that seems to work pretty well. It's the input files that are the problem. I don't think svn is the right approach for dealing with them. They tend to branch a lot, but rarely merge.

I'd love to have an interface that gave me an overview of the runs I've done and the lineage of the input files for each run. It's hard to imagine that I'm the first numerical physicist to have this problem so there must be projects out there that deal with this, but I don't know where to look. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
atoasttoall

 

[mathmate]

If you are a numerical relativist, you would certainly know how to programme.
You can take a look at the language Perl, or
PERL - Practical Extraction and Report Language
if your data are in ASCII format, Perl can do a lot for you.