# What is the pyfrm format? and how is it defined

**URL:** <https://pyfr.discourse.group/t/what-is-the-pyfrm-format-and-how-is-it-defined/186>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [12 December 2017 23:27 UTC](https://pyfr.discourse.group/t/what-is-the-pyfrm-format-and-how-is-it-defined/186 "2017-12-12T23:27:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Kurt\_Sansom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c4cdca/32.png) [@Kurt\_Sansom](https://pyfr.discourse.group/u/Kurt_Sansom)\
**Post date:** [12 December 2017 23:27 UTC](https://pyfr.discourse.group/t/what-is-the-pyfrm-format-and-how-is-it-defined/186/1 "2017-12-12T23:27:12Z")

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I am curious to know the formatting of the pyfrm format, it appears to not have much documentation.  
I will go look at the code, but I wanted to ask here first.

Regards,  
~Kurt

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**Author:** ![Dmitry\_Buzolin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Dmitry\_Buzolin](https://pyfr.discourse.group/u/Dmitry_Buzolin)\
**Post date:** [17 October 2019 21:48 UTC](https://pyfr.discourse.group/t/what-is-the-pyfrm-format-and-how-is-it-defined/186/2 "2019-10-17T21:48:54Z")

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It is internal mesh format used in PyFR. There is indeed not much documented about it (your best bet is to read code how importer works), but you can convert MSH, CGNS meshes to it: ([http://www.pyfr.org/user\_guide.php](http://www.pyfr.org/user_guide.php))

```auto
pyfr import mesh.msh mesh.pyfrm

```

Thanks,  
Dmitry.

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**Author:** ![WillT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bc79bd/32.png) [@WillT](https://pyfr.discourse.group/u/WillT)\
**Post date:** [11 January 2021 19:11 UTC](https://pyfr.discourse.group/t/what-is-the-pyfrm-format-and-how-is-it-defined/186/3 "2021-01-11T19:11:02Z")

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The `pyfrm` and `pyfrs` files are both hdf5 files and you can easily probe them with:  
`$ h5dump -n foo.pyfrm`  
and  
`$ h5dump -d some_dataset_name -p -H foo.pyfrm`