Phconvert

Expanded File support

What's Changed
* PQ: Workaround decoding error for non-UTF-8 strings by tritemio in https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/pull/36
* Add support for PHU and for duplicated tags in PTU by tritemio in https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/pull/37
* Update pqreader.py by seb5g in https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/pull/34
* Appveyor: activate base env before using conda build. by tritemio in https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/pull/42
* Add tests for PHU files by tritemio in https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/pull/43
* bh_print_sys_params: update to python3 and other enhancements. by dmopalmer in https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/pull/46
* Ensure h5file is closed even if validation fails by ramenbytes in https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/pull/52
* Avoid copying data array when loading sm files by ramenbytes in https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/pull/49
* Combined updates by harripd in https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/pull/57
* Updates for 0.9.1 by harripd in https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/pull/58

New Contributors
* seb5g made their first contribution in https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/pull/34
* dmopalmer made their first contribution in https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/pull/46
* ramenbytes made their first contribution in https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/pull/52
* harripd made their first contribution in https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/pull/57

**Full Changelog**: https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/compare/0.9...0.9.1

> **Important**: This version drops support for Python 2.7. Python 2.7 [is approaching end of life](https://pythonclock.org/) and we have no resources to keep supporting it. If you need to run Python 2.7, you can keep using phconvert 0.8.2 or you can pay a developer to support it.

This version improves supports for loading PicoQuant files:

- Added support for decoding `rtHydraHarpT3` PTU files
- Improvements in metadata decoding of HT3 and PT3 files
- Loading of ns-ALEX measurement from PTU, HT3 or PT3 files now can be done with a single function (`phc.loader.nsalex_pq`)

> *Release sponsored by Prof. Eitan Lerner*

**Minor release:**

Fix a packaging issue for PIP users that caused an error on import due to missing metadata file.

Minor release with improved file validation.

- More stringent validation checks (commit https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/commit/d463b42574090cb59aef31898f447f63a92feec1)
- Add subpackage `phconvert.v04` to load and validate Photon-HDF5 v0.4
- Fix validation with `strict_description = False`. Before this change
descriptions checks were not disabled completely when using `strict_description = False`.
- Check that arrays in `/photon_data` are strictly 1D (commit https://github.com/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/commit/2dde57b216b1d838475e925ee9e904129e3e0f82).

What's New?

This is a major release of phconvert that adds support for Photon-HDF5 v0.5 and for more input file formats (Picoquant PT3. and .T3R). Many thanks to biswajitSM for contributing the PT3/T3R feature.

To install or update phconvert use:


conda install phconvert -c conda-forge


> **NOTE**: You can also install phconvert from PyPI.

Note that phconvert 0.8+ will save only Photon-HDF5 v0.5. If you need to save the old Photon-HDF5 v0.4 format, you can use phconvert 0.7.x. The 0.7 branch will receive only critical bug fixes.

- **Photon-HDF5 version 0.5**: This release of phconvert will read an save the new Photon-HDF5 version 0.5. Note that Photon-HDF5 v0.5 is still in "release candidate" stage (rc1). Minor modifications to the format are still possible (but at this point unlikely) before the final 0.5 specs release. You can read in the docs [what changed in Photon-HDF5 v0.5](http://photon-hdf5.readthedocs.io/en/0.5.dev/whats_new_ver05.html). Note that despite being "release candidate", the new Photon-HDF5 v0.5 has already been used to publish data of at least 3 publications in 2017.

- **PicoQuant PT3 T3R files**: We added support for reading T3R files and improved PT3 support. New [example notebooks](http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/Photon-HDF5/phconvert/tree/master/notebooks/) show how to convert ns-ALEX/PIE files saved in PT3 or T3R files to Photon-HDF5.

- **MyBinder**: after a period of breakage due to migration to a new infrastructure, MyBinder works again. You can try converting files online without any installation by clicking here: [](https://mybinder.org/v2/gh/Photon-HDF5/Photon-HDF5-Converter/master)

What's New?
- Add support for PicoQuant PTU files (for the following t3records formats: rtPicoHarpT3, rtHydraHarp2T3, rtTimeHarp260NT3, rtTimeHarp260PT3)
- Add unit test for pqreader.py module
- Run `bhreader`'s and `pqreader`'s unit tests on CI services (AppVeyor and TravisCI)