Load and save DataFrames

Load and save DataFrames#

We do not cover all features of the packages. Please refer to their documentation to learn them.

Here we’ll load CSV.jl to read and write CSV files and Arrow.jl, JLSO.jl, and serialization, which allow us to work with a binary format and JSONTables.jl for JSON interaction. Finally we consider a custom JDF.jl format.

using DataFrames
using Arrow
using CSV
using Serialization
using JLSO
using JSONTables
using CodecZlib
using ZipFile
using JDF
using StatsPlots ## for charts
using Mmap ## for compression

Let’s create a simple DataFrame for testing purposes,

x = DataFrame(
    A=[true, false, true], B=[1, 2, missing],
    C=[missing, "b", "c"], D=['a', missing, 'c']
)
3×4 DataFrame
RowABCD
BoolInt64?String?Char?
1true1missinga
2false2bmissing
3truemissingcc

and use eltypes to look at the columnwise types.

eltype.(eachcol(x))

4-element Vector{Type}:
 Bool
 Union{Missing, Int64}
 Union{Missing, String}
 Union{Missing, Char}

CSV.jl#

Let’s use CSV to save x to disk; make sure x1.csv does not conflict with some file in your working directory.

CSV.write("x1.csv", x)

"x1.csv"

Now we can see how it was saved by reading x.csv.

print(read("x1.csv", String))

A,B,C,D
true,1,,a
false,2,b,
true,,c,c

We can also load it back as a data frame

y = CSV.read("x1.csv", DataFrame)
3×4 DataFrame
RowABCD
BoolInt64?String1?String1?
1true1missinga
2false2bmissing
3truemissingcc

Note that when loading in a DataFrame from a CSV the column type for columns :C :D have changed to use special strings defined in the InlineStrings.jl package.

eltype.(eachcol(y))

4-element Vector{Type}:
 Bool
 Union{Missing, Int64}
 Union{Missing, InlineStrings.String1}
 Union{Missing, InlineStrings.String1}

Serialization by JDF.jl and JLSO.jl#

Now we use serialization to save x.

There are two ways to perform serialization. The first way is to use the Serialization.serialize as below:

Note that in general, this process will not work if the reading and writing are done by different versions of Julia, or an instance of Julia with a different system image.

open("x.bin", "w") do io
    serialize(io, x)
end

Now we load back the saved file to y variable. Again y is identical to x. However, please beware that if you session does not have DataFrames.jl loaded, then it may not recognize the content as DataFrames.jl

y = open(deserialize, "x.bin")
3×4 DataFrame
RowABCD
BoolInt64?String?Char?
1true1missinga
2false2bmissing
3truemissingcc
eltype.(eachcol(y))

4-element Vector{Type}:
 Bool
 Union{Missing, Int64}
 Union{Missing, String}
 Union{Missing, Char}

JDF.jl#

JDF.jl is a relatively new package designed to serialize DataFrames. You can save a DataFrame with the savejdf function. For more details about design assumptions and limitations of JDF.jl please check out xiaodaigh/JDF.jl.

JDF.save("x.jdf", x);

To load the saved JDF file, one can use the loadjdf function

x_loaded = JDF.load("x.jdf") |> DataFrame
3×4 DataFrame
RowABCD
BoolInt64?String?Char?
1true1missinga
2false2bmissing
3truemissingcc

You can see that they are the same

isequal(x_loaded, x)

true

JDF.jl offers the ability to load only certain columns from disk to help with working with large files. set up a JDFFile which is a on disk representation of x backed by JDF.jl

x_ondisk = jdf"x.jdf"

JDF.JDFFile{String}("x.jdf")

We can see all the names of x without loading it into memory

names(x_ondisk)

4-element Vector{Symbol}:
 :A
 :B
 :C
 :D

The below is an example of how to load only columns :A and :D

xd = JDF.load(x_ondisk; cols=["A", "D"]) |> DataFrame
3×2 DataFrame
RowAD
BoolChar?
1truea
2falsemissing
3truec

JLSO.jl#

Another way to perform serialization is by using the JLSO.jl library:

JLSO.save("x.jlso", :data => x)

Now we can load back the file to y

y = JLSO.load("x.jlso")[:data]
3×4 DataFrame
RowABCD
BoolInt64?String?Char?
1true1missinga
2false2bmissing
3truemissingcc
eltype.(eachcol(y))

4-element Vector{Type}:
 Bool
 Union{Missing, Int64}
 Union{Missing, String}
 Union{Missing, Char}

JSONTables.jl#

Often you might need to read and write data stored in JSON format. JSONTables.jl provides a way to process them in row-oriented or column-oriented layout. We present both options below.

open(io -> arraytable(io, x), "x1.json", "w")

106

open(io -> objecttable(io, x), "x2.json", "w")

76

print(read("x1.json", String))

[{"A":true,"B":1,"C":null,"D":"a"},{"A":false,"B":2,"C":"b","D":null},{"A":true,"B":null,"C":"c","D":"c"}]

print(read("x2.json", String))

{"A":[true,false,true],"B":[1,2,null],"C":[null,"b","c"],"D":["a",null,"c"]}

y1 = open(jsontable, "x1.json") |> DataFrame
3×4 DataFrame
RowABCD
BoolInt64?String?String?
1true1missinga
2false2bmissing
3truemissingcc
eltype.(eachcol(y1))

4-element Vector{Type}:
 Bool
 Union{Missing, Int64}
 Union{Missing, String}
 Union{Missing, String}

y2 = open(jsontable, "x2.json") |> DataFrame
3×4 DataFrame
RowABCD
BoolInt64?String?String?
1true1missinga
2false2bmissing
3truemissingcc
eltype.(eachcol(y2))

4-element Vector{Type}:
 Bool
 Union{Missing, Int64}
 Union{Missing, String}
 Union{Missing, String}

Arrow.jl#

Finally we use Apache Arrow format that allows, in particular, for data interchange with R or Python.

Arrow.write("x.arrow", x)

"x.arrow"

y = Arrow.Table("x.arrow") |> DataFrame
3×4 DataFrame
RowABCD
BoolInt64?String?Char?
1true1missinga
2false2bmissing
3truemissingcc
eltype.(eachcol(y))

4-element Vector{Type}:
 Bool
 Union{Missing, Int64}
 Union{Missing, String}
 Union{Missing, Char}

Note that columns of y are immutable

try
    y.A[1] = false
catch e
    show(e)
end

ReadOnlyMemoryError()

This is because Arrow.Table uses memory mapping and thus uses a custom vector types:

y.A

3-element Arrow.BoolVector{Bool}:
 1
 0
 1

y.B

3-element Arrow.Primitive{Union{Missing, Int64}, Vector{Int64}}:
 1
 2
  missing

You can get standard Julia Base vectors by copying a data frame

y2 = copy(y)
3×4 DataFrame
RowABCD
BoolInt64?String?Char?
1true1missinga
2false2bmissing
3truemissingcc
y2.A

3-element Vector{Bool}:
 1
 0
 1

y2.B

3-element Vector{Union{Missing, Int64}}:
 1
 2
  missing

Basic benchmarking#

Next, we’ll create some files, so be careful that you don’t already have these files in your working directory! In particular, we’ll time how long it takes us to write a DataFrame with 1000 rows and 100000 columns.

bigdf = DataFrame(rand(Bool, 10^4, 1000), :auto)

bigdf[!, 1] = Int.(bigdf[!, 1])
bigdf[!, 2] = bigdf[!, 2] .+ 0.5
bigdf[!, 3] = string.(bigdf[!, 3], ", as string")

println("First run")

First run

println("CSV.jl")
csvwrite1 = @elapsed @time CSV.write("bigdf1.csv", bigdf)
println("Serialization")
serializewrite1 = @elapsed @time open(io -> serialize(io, bigdf), "bigdf.bin", "w")
println("JDF.jl")
jdfwrite1 = @elapsed @time JDF.save("bigdf.jdf", bigdf)
println("JLSO.jl")
jlsowrite1 = @elapsed @time JLSO.save("bigdf.jlso", :data => bigdf)
println("Arrow.jl")
arrowwrite1 = @elapsed @time Arrow.write("bigdf.arrow", bigdf)
println("JSONTables.jl arraytable")
jsontablesawrite1 = @elapsed @time open(io -> arraytable(io, bigdf), "bigdf1.json", "w")
println("JSONTables.jl objecttable")
jsontablesowrite1 = @elapsed @time open(io -> objecttable(io, bigdf), "bigdf2.json", "w")
println("Second run")
println("CSV.jl")
csvwrite2 = @elapsed @time CSV.write("bigdf1.csv", bigdf)
println("Serialization")
serializewrite2 = @elapsed @time open(io -> serialize(io, bigdf), "bigdf.bin", "w")
println("JDF.jl")
jdfwrite2 = @elapsed @time JDF.save("bigdf.jdf", bigdf)
println("JLSO.jl")
jlsowrite2 = @elapsed @time JLSO.save("bigdf.jlso", :data => bigdf)
println("Arrow.jl")
arrowwrite2 = @elapsed @time Arrow.write("bigdf.arrow", bigdf)
println("JSONTables.jl arraytable")
jsontablesawrite2 = @elapsed @time open(io -> arraytable(io, bigdf), "bigdf1.json", "w")
println("JSONTables.jl objecttable")
jsontablesowrite2 = @elapsed @time open(io -> objecttable(io, bigdf), "bigdf2.json", "w")

CSV.jl
  4.182118 seconds (44.60 M allocations: 1.126 GiB, 1.93% gc time, 70.66% compilation time)
Serialization
  0.182378 seconds (148.06 k allocations: 9.349 MiB, 25.80% compilation time)
JDF.jl
  0.167824 seconds (46.70 k allocations: 147.645 MiB, 7.71% gc time, 26.96% compilation time)
JLSO.jl
  1.042447 seconds (170.03 k allocations: 17.368 MiB, 0.58% gc time, 6.27% compilation time)
Arrow.jl
  3.306893 seconds (3.02 M allocations: 209.474 MiB, 1.39% gc time, 97.12% compilation time)
JSONTables.jl arraytable
 11.088881 seconds (229.61 M allocations: 5.423 GiB, 14.59% gc time, 0.07% compilation time)
JSONTables.jl objecttable
  0.441042 seconds (62.21 k allocations: 308.136 MiB, 47.08% gc time, 15.77% compilation time)
Second run
CSV.jl
  1.451915 seconds (44.40 M allocations: 1.113 GiB, 17.16% gc time)
Serialization
  0.142911 seconds (14.32 k allocations: 397.188 KiB, 5.72% compilation time)
JDF.jl
  0.120403 seconds (28.11 k allocations: 146.392 MiB, 8.49% gc time)
JLSO.jl
  0.972342 seconds (30.24 k allocations: 7.593 MiB)
Arrow.jl
  0.094460 seconds (52.67 k allocations: 5.608 MiB)
JSONTables.jl arraytable
 11.273705 seconds (229.61 M allocations: 5.423 GiB, 14.34% gc time, 0.07% compilation time)
JSONTables.jl objecttable
  0.204532 seconds (18.94 k allocations: 305.308 MiB, 2.62% gc time, 4.38% compilation time)

0.204651448

groupedbar(
    repeat(["CSV.jl", "Serialization", "JDF.jl", "JLSO.jl", "Arrow.jl", "JSONTables.jl\nobjecttable"],
        inner=2),
    [csvwrite1, csvwrite2, serializewrite1, serializewrite1, jdfwrite1, jdfwrite2,
        jlsowrite1, jlsowrite2, arrowwrite1, arrowwrite2, jsontablesowrite2, jsontablesowrite2],
    group=repeat(["1st", "2nd"], outer=6),
    ylab="Second",
    title="Write Performance\nDataFrame: bigdf\nSize: $(size(bigdf))"
)
_images/3da16227c5bdf57bea806c1453502c57471ab43141c60aa024b75a09a8b9ffd4.png 
data_files = ["bigdf1.csv", "bigdf.bin", "bigdf.arrow", "bigdf1.json", "bigdf2.json"]
df = DataFrame(file=data_files, size=getfield.(stat.(data_files), :size))
append!(df, DataFrame(file="bigdf.jdf", size=reduce((x, y) -> x + y.size,
    stat.(joinpath.("bigdf.jdf", readdir("bigdf.jdf"))),
    init=0)))
sort!(df, :size)
6×2 DataFrame
Rowfilesize
StringInt64
1bigdf.arrow1742874
2bigdf.bin5197783
3bigdf.jdf5220906
4bigdf1.csv55088279
5bigdf2.json55092280
6bigdf1.json124033387
@df df plot(:file, :size / 1024^2, seriestype=:bar, title="Format File Size (MB)", label="Size", ylab="MB")
_images/4330babc53ed738bd2f34473d2a01c8d4dbfc75b0d9ecf112b617ecc6e5fb02d.png 
println("First run")
println("CSV.jl")
csvread1 = @elapsed @time CSV.read("bigdf1.csv", DataFrame)
println("Serialization")
serializeread1 = @elapsed @time open(deserialize, "bigdf.bin")
println("JDF.jl")
jdfread1 = @elapsed @time JDF.load("bigdf.jdf") |> DataFrame
println("JLSO.jl")
jlsoread1 = @elapsed @time JLSO.load("bigdf.jlso")
println("Arrow.jl")
arrowread1 = @elapsed @time df_tmp = Arrow.Table("bigdf.arrow") |> DataFrame
arrowread1copy = @elapsed @time copy(df_tmp)
println("JSONTables.jl arraytable")
jsontablesaread1 = @elapsed @time open(jsontable, "bigdf1.json")
println("JSONTables.jl objecttable")
jsontablesoread1 = @elapsed @time open(jsontable, "bigdf2.json")
println("Second run")
csvread2 = @elapsed @time CSV.read("bigdf1.csv", DataFrame)
println("Serialization")
serializeread2 = @elapsed @time open(deserialize, "bigdf.bin")
println("JDF.jl")
jdfread2 = @elapsed @time JDF.load("bigdf.jdf") |> DataFrame
println("JLSO.jl")
jlsoread2 = @elapsed @time JLSO.load("bigdf.jlso")
println("Arrow.jl")
arrowread2 = @elapsed @time df_tmp = Arrow.Table("bigdf.arrow") |> DataFrame
arrowread2copy = @elapsed @time copy(df_tmp)
println("JSONTables.jl arraytable")
jsontablesaread2 = @elapsed @time open(jsontable, "bigdf1.json")
println("JSONTables.jl objecttable")
jsontablesoread2 = @elapsed @time open(jsontable, "bigdf2.json");

First run
CSV.jl
  1.118292 seconds (397.72 k allocations: 51.661 MiB, 1.84% gc time, 35.97% compilation time)
Serialization
  0.421860 seconds (9.49 M allocations: 155.129 MiB, 6.02% gc time, 6.04% compilation time)
JDF.jl
  0.235720 seconds (123.90 k allocations: 161.540 MiB, 69.39% compilation time)
JLSO.jl
  0.358017 seconds (9.50 M allocations: 157.744 MiB, 2.95% gc time, 6.18% compilation time)
Arrow.jl
  0.373816 seconds (347.63 k allocations: 22.531 MiB, 98.14% compilation time)
  0.054821 seconds (12.50 k allocations: 10.320 MiB)
JSONTables.jl arraytable
 13.365779 seconds (30.24 M allocations: 2.530 GiB, 4.82% gc time)
JSONTables.jl objecttable
  0.346682 seconds (7.05 k allocations: 282.608 MiB, 2.31% gc time, 0.04% compilation time)
Second run
  0.829712 seconds (137.55 k allocations: 34.245 MiB)
Serialization
  0.384698 seconds (9.48 M allocations: 154.650 MiB, 4.71% gc time)
JDF.jl
  0.060879 seconds (69.69 k allocations: 157.941 MiB)
JLSO.jl
  0.371550 seconds (9.50 M allocations: 157.320 MiB, 7.39% gc time)
Arrow.jl
  0.005045 seconds (67.53 k allocations: 3.292 MiB)
  0.054906 seconds (12.50 k allocations: 10.320 MiB)
JSONTables.jl arraytable
 13.105496 seconds (30.24 M allocations: 2.530 GiB, 3.00% gc time)
JSONTables.jl objecttable
  0.348026 seconds (6.06 k allocations: 282.538 MiB, 4.00% gc time)

Exclude JSONTables due to much longer timing

groupedbar(
    repeat(["CSV.jl", "Serialization", "JDF.jl", "JLSO.jl", "Arrow.jl", "Arrow.jl\ncopy", ##"JSON\narraytable",
            "JSON\nobjecttable"], inner=2),
    [csvread1, csvread2, serializeread1, serializeread2, jdfread1, jdfread2, jlsoread1, jlsoread2,
        arrowread1, arrowread2, arrowread1 + arrowread1copy, arrowread2 + arrowread2copy,
        # jsontablesaread1, jsontablesaread2,
        jsontablesoread1, jsontablesoread2],
    group=repeat(["1st", "2nd"], outer=7),
    ylab="Second",
    title="Read Performance\nDataFrame: bigdf\nSize: $(size(bigdf))"
)
_images/9f3e22bc22fea7857e4b1ad1e67f8b5ec9d21c2a5ccf391fba1f191d0c9f4f31.png

Using gzip compression#

A common user requirement is to be able to load and save CSV that are compressed using gzip. Below we show how this can be accomplished using CodecZlib.jl. The same pattern is applicable to JSONTables.jl compression/decompression. Again make sure that you do not have file named df_compress_test.csv.gz in your working directory. We first generate a random data frame.

df = DataFrame(rand(1:10, 10, 1000), :auto)
10×1000 DataFrame
900 columns omitted
Rowx1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8x9x10x11x12x13x14x15x16x17x18x19x20x21x22x23x24x25x26x27x28x29x30x31x32x33x34x35x36x37x38x39x40x41x42x43x44x45x46x47x48x49x50x51x52x53x54x55x56x57x58x59x60x61x62x63x64x65x66x67x68x69x70x71x72x73x74x75x76x77x78x79x80x81x82x83x84x85x86x87x88x89x90x91x92x93x94x95x96x97x98x99x100⋯
Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64⋯
12109342641075101857925252516105835105101491043359414186610157699102535397996641862153979719917101137172310110341⋯
24211018956109822281085101010368319310112875468781081129678649451010109798574756671172751862626971599947818123103⋯
32415872785542912855497611047756233610102994429210105625107739210563635103795247113683341026734107467686106108138⋯
4754392106645783655258412865542721962813831534989455742266374689191106924363212103559848167310254398107475⋯
59556981101858328258914108721098846826648241143292771753724847274741497997739491831171046856105109781359827⋯
61104983942718479107822111023373225443756881141096621452109535338564284198108510623101622101171064107101010771039844⋯
72429757510382115443110371032216541071101887381032710951061056774258426106168953589735797973106718847784158295910⋯
871076514710222743947469743102746718478439926851098387831573697237642686710717294727108552108624156235456124⋯
94793951545858107262321051067829935325399533995218436226683229248832188610573648810452362875288291015935134⋯
108471073562362739828932374102333146856116346379653587234974914101043828523334910563791055243436293659325388⋯

GzipCompressorStream comes from CodecZlib

open("df_compress_test.csv.gz", "w") do io
    stream = GzipCompressorStream(io)
    CSV.write(stream, df)
    close(stream)
end

df2 = CSV.File(transcode(GzipDecompressor, Mmap.mmap("df_compress_test.csv.gz"))) |> DataFrame
10×1000 DataFrame
900 columns omitted
Rowx1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8x9x10x11x12x13x14x15x16x17x18x19x20x21x22x23x24x25x26x27x28x29x30x31x32x33x34x35x36x37x38x39x40x41x42x43x44x45x46x47x48x49x50x51x52x53x54x55x56x57x58x59x60x61x62x63x64x65x66x67x68x69x70x71x72x73x74x75x76x77x78x79x80x81x82x83x84x85x86x87x88x89x90x91x92x93x94x95x96x97x98x99x100⋯
Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64Int64⋯
12109342641075101857925252516105835105101491043359414186610157699102535397996641862153979719917101137172310110341⋯
24211018956109822281085101010368319310112875468781081129678649451010109798574756671172751862626971599947818123103⋯
32415872785542912855497611047756233610102994429210105625107739210563635103795247113683341026734107467686106108138⋯
4754392106645783655258412865542721962813831534989455742266374689191106924363212103559848167310254398107475⋯
59556981101858328258914108721098846826648241143292771753724847274741497997739491831171046856105109781359827⋯
61104983942718479107822111023373225443756881141096621452109535338564284198108510623101622101171064107101010771039844⋯
72429757510382115443110371032216541071101887381032710951061056774258426106168953589735797973106718847784158295910⋯
871076514710222743947469743102746718478439926851098387831573697237642686710717294727108552108624156235456124⋯
94793951545858107262321051067829935325399533995218436226683229248832188610573648810452362875288291015935134⋯
108471073562362739828932374102333146856116346379653587234974914101043828523334910563791055243436293659325388⋯
df == df2

true

Using zip files#

Sometimes you may have files compressed inside a zip file. In such a situation you may use ZipFile.jl in conjunction an an appropriate reader to read the files. Here we first create a ZIP file and then read back its contents into a DataFrame.

df1 = DataFrame(rand(1:10, 3, 4), :auto)
3×4 DataFrame
Rowx1x2x3x4
Int64Int64Int64Int64
16596
293105
36316
df2 = DataFrame(rand(1:10, 3, 4), :auto)
3×4 DataFrame
Rowx1x2x3x4
Int64Int64Int64Int64
13872
23539
34295

And we show yet another way to write a DataFrame into a CSV file: Writing a CSV file into the zip file

w = ZipFile.Writer("x.zip")

f1 = ZipFile.addfile(w, "x1.csv")
write(f1, sprint(show, "text/csv", df1))

# write a second CSV file into zip file
f2 = ZipFile.addfile(w, "x2.csv", method=ZipFile.Deflate)
write(f2, sprint(show, "text/csv", df2))

close(w)

Now we read the compressed CSV file we have written:

z = ZipFile.Reader("x.zip");
# find the index index of file called x1.csv
index_xcsv = findfirst(x -> x.name == "x1.csv", z.files)
# to read the x1.csv file in the zip file
df1_2 = CSV.read(read(z.files[index_xcsv]), DataFrame)
3×4 DataFrame
Rowx1x2x3x4
Int64Int64Int64Int64
16596
293105
36316
df1_2 == df1

true

# find the index index of file called x2.csv
index_xcsv = findfirst(x -> x.name == "x2.csv", z.files)
# to read the x2.csv file in the zip file
df2_2 = CSV.read(read(z.files[index_xcsv]), DataFrame)
3×4 DataFrame
Rowx1x2x3x4
Int64Int64Int64Int64
13872
23539
34295
df2_2 == df2

true

Note that once you read a given file from z object its stream is all used-up (reaching its end). Therefore to read it again you need to close the file object z and open it again. Also do not forget to close the zip file once you are done.

close(z)

Remove generated files

rm("x.arrow")
rm("x.bin")
rm("x.zip")
rm("x.jlso")
rm("x1.csv")
rm("x1.json")
rm("x2.json")
rm("x.jdf", recursive=true)
rm("bigdf.jdf", recursive=true)
rm("df_compress_test.csv.gz")
rm("bigdf1.json")
rm("bigdf1.csv")
rm("bigdf2.json")
rm("bigdf.jlso")
rm("bigdf.bin")
rm("bigdf.arrow")

This notebook was generated using Literate.jl.

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