Problem: output formats are difficult for programs to parse and associate with original components and connections

[michael-okeefe]

Problem Description

The two current output formats (out.csv and stats.csv) are nice human-readable formats that can be pulled up into Microsoft Excel or other spreadsheet programs. However, they are difficult to parse and associate back with the original objects from the input TOML file. In particular, for the out.csv file:

• some metrics are by component
• some metrics are by connection

Because of the above, it may not be as easy to associate metrics with the input file components -- especially for a computer program.

Areas to Investigate

• Add a second header row that clearly distinguishes which component or which connection the metric is associated with
• make labels easier / clearer to parse and more consistent

Additionally, although we would never want to eliminate the CSV format, we may want to also add the ability to write out to a JSON format although that option needs to be further investigated as it may have implications for the event writing code.