Variable Naming Convention

All readers normalize variable names to a canonical form on read. Writers emit canonical names as-is. This ensures consistent dictionary keys regardless of input format.

Canonical Names

Grid Coordinates

Canonical	Description
`x`	x-coordinate
`y`	y-coordinate
`z`	z-coordinate

Flow Variables

Canonical	Description
`uvel`	x-velocity
`vvel`	y-velocity
`wvel`	z-velocity
`pres`	Pressure
`temp`	Temperature
`dens`	Density
`mach`	Mach number
`xmom`	x-momentum
`ymom`	y-momentum
`zmom`	z-momentum
`energy`	Energy

Alias Mapping

Common shorthand and long-form names are mapped to the canonical form automatically during read. Matching is case-insensitive.

Input name(s)	Canonical
`u`, `u-velocity`	`uvel`
`v`, `v-velocity`	`vvel`
`w`, `w-velocity`	`wvel`
`p`, `pressure`	`pres`
`t`, `temperature`	`temp`
`rho`, `density`	`dens`
`m`	`mach`
`x-grid`	`x`
`y-grid`	`y`
`z-grid`	`z`

Variable names that don't match any alias pass through unchanged.

Example

A Tecplot file with header VARIABLES = "X" "Y" "Z" "RHO" "U" "V" "P" produces dictionaries with keys:

grid_dict.keys()  # dict_keys(['x', 'y', 'z'])
flow_dict.keys()  # dict_keys(['dens', 'uvel', 'vvel', 'pres'])

Tip

Writers always use the canonical names. If you convert from Tecplot → HDF5, the HDF5 file will contain dens, uvel, etc. — not the original Tecplot names.