laterite — a Rust-backed AGS4 reader, writer and validator

laterite

A Rust-backed AGS4 toolchain for the AGS4 geotechnical data format — validate, read as typed data, query, build, fix, diff, certify, and convert ↔ Excel — with a modern, born-typed polars API.

Coming from python-ags4? laterite.compat is a faithful, faster stand-in for its AGS4 and AGS4.utils modules — swap from python_ags4 import AGS4 for from laterite import compat as AGS4 and keep your code.

Install

pip install laterite                     # base AGS4 (polars + duckdb, pyarrow-free)
pip install "laterite[compat]"           # + pandas (python-ags4 drop-in) — still pyarrow-free
pip install "laterite[compat,pyarrow]"   # + the optional pyarrow accelerator (or [all])

Requires Python ≥ 3.12. The wheel is abi3, so one binary covers 3.12 / 3.13 / 3.14. Installing it also puts the lat CLI on your PATH.

The [compat] drop-in is pyarrow-free and fast on its own; adding pyarrow swaps the pandas step for pyarrow's to_pandas and unlocks the Arrow-backed string dtype — an accelerator, never a requirement.

Use

import laterite

# Validate — errors + warnings by default (FYI is opt-in)
report = laterite.validate("delivery.ags")
report.is_valid
for rule, findings in report.by_rule().items():
    print(rule, len(findings))

# Read born-typed columns: a 2DP heading is a float, a DT a datetime
ags = laterite.read("delivery.ags")
ags.groups                       # ['PROJ', 'LOCA', 'SAMP', …]
ags["LOCA"]["LOCA_GL"][0]        # → 12.3  (a polars DataFrame per group)

# SQL across groups, no conversion step
ags.sql("SELECT loca_id, count(*) FROM SAMP GROUP BY 1")

# Repair a dirty file into a fresh handle, then keep working with it
fixed = ags.fix(risky=True)      # pads short rows, transliterates non-ASCII, …

# Typed graph: PROJ → LOCA → SAMP → …
from laterite.ags4 import read_typed
for loca in read_typed("delivery.ags").locas:
    print(loca.loca_id, loca.loca_gl)

# python-ags4 drop-in — swap the import, keep your code
from laterite import compat as AGS4
tables, headings = AGS4.AGS4_to_dataframe("delivery.ags")
AGS4.dataframe_to_AGS4(tables, headings, "round-trip.ags")

read returns born-typed polars frames by default (or pandas with read(..., backend="pandas")) — both pyarrow-free, read back from a Python-owned in-memory DuckDB engine.

More than a faster `python-ags4`

python-ags4 is the reference Python library for AGS4 — validation plus pandas read/write — and it inspired this project. laterite matches that surface and adds a toolchain on top:

	`laterite`	`python-ags4`
Validate — numbered AGS4 rules	✅	✅
Read → data frames	✅ born-typed polars or pandas	pandas, all strings
Build / write AGS4 · Excel ↔ AGS4	✅	✅
Repair engine (`fix`)	✅	—
SQL across groups · revision diff	✅	—
Validity certificates (`.ags.idx`)	✅	—
Transport — zstd compress + age encrypt	✅	—
Typed PROJ → LOCA → SAMP graph	✅	—
pyarrow required	no (optional accelerator)	via pandas' own deps

Performance

Synthetic, spec-valid AGS4 from ags4-forge — the wide scaffold: 123 groups, realistic type mix, zero findings. macOS arm64, hot files, mean of 5 warm runs, python-ags4 1.2.0 vs laterite 0.8.0. Both agree on the findings.

Validation

File	`python-ags4 check_file`	`laterite.validate`	speedup
4.9 MB · 459 BH	1.5 s	50 ms	30.0×
24.9 MB · 2,219 BH	3.7 s	266 ms	13.9×
102.7 MB · 8,872 BH	12.3 s	1.1 s	11.7×
275.5 MB · 22,813 BH	34.1 s	2.6 s	13.0×
549.7 MB · 45,107 BH	70.0 s	5.4 s	12.9×

Read → typed — the honest comparison for real work. python-ags4 needs AGS4_to_dataframe + convert_to_numeric on every group to get numbers, and still leaves dates as text; laterite.read is born-typed, dates included.

File	`python-ags4` + `convert_to_numeric`	`laterite.read`	speedup
4.9 MB	187 ms	26 ms	7.2×
24.9 MB	811 ms	136 ms	6.0×
102.7 MB	3.4 s	541 ms	6.3×
275.5 MB	8.9 s	1.4 s	6.4×
549.7 MB	17.5 s	2.9 s	6.0×

Read → strings — like for like, both returning pandas frames of text.

File	`python-ags4 AGS4_to_dataframe`	`laterite.compat`	speedup
4.9 MB	144 ms	49 ms	2.9×
24.9 MB	718 ms	206 ms	3.5×
102.7 MB	2.8 s	870 ms	3.2×
275.5 MB	7.3 s	2.2 s	3.3×
549.7 MB	15.2 s	4.6 s	3.3×

The ratio holds as files grow — the gap is a constant factor, not a head start that erodes. Reproduce any of this with uv run python tools/bench-vs-python-ags4.py in the repo: it generates the rungs, verifies each against a pinned SHA-256 so a change to the generator can't move the numbers unnoticed, and prints these exact tables.

Parity + clean-room

121 / 131 of python-ags4 1.2.0's own test suite passes through laterite.compat (92 %); the 10 remaining are deliberate non-closures, documented rule by rule. A weekly job compares the two public surfaces, so a function added upstream can't quietly go missing here.

Two caveats worth knowing before you swap the import. compat mirrors the library API — python-ags4's ags4_cli command is not mirrored, because laterite ships lat instead with its own JSON shapes; and compat is one flat module rather than a package, so from laterite.compat import AGS4 (a submodule import) is not the shape — use from laterite import compat as AGS4.

The validator is clean-room from the published AGS4 specification, not adapted from another library's source — python-ags4 is LGPL-3.0, and that separation is what lets laterite ship under MIT. Details: COMPAT.md · OBSERVATIONS.md.

One engine, every stack

laterite on PyPI is the Python surface of one Rust AGS4 engine, shared across:

Surface	Package	Get it
Python	`laterite` — PyPI	`pip install laterite`
Node.js	`laterite` — npm	`npm install laterite`
CLI	`lat`	bundled with this wheel
DuckDB	`laterite_ags4` — community extension	`INSTALL laterite_ags4 FROM community;`
Browser	validator + data explorer — WASM	open in a browser

Scriptable output is byte-identical across all of them, so a CI gate and a notebook can't disagree.

Docs

Full documentation — Learn, Cookbook, Concepts, and the Python API reference — at https://niko86.github.io/laterite/docs/.

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laterite 0.9.0

laterite

Install

Use

More than a faster `python-ags4`

Performance

Parity + clean-room

One engine, every stack

Docs

Project links

Key dates

1 maintainer

Credits

GitHub Statistics

License expression

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Provides Extra

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laterite 0.9.0

laterite

Install

Use

More than a faster python-ags4

Performance

Parity + clean-room

One engine, every stack

Docs

Project links

Key dates

1 maintainer

Credits

GitHub Statistics

License expression

Requires

Provides Extra

Tags

Classifiers

Download files

Source Distribution

Built Distributions

File details

File metadata

File hashes

Provenance

File details

File metadata

File hashes

Provenance

File details

File metadata

File hashes

Provenance

File details

File metadata

File hashes

Provenance

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

More than a faster `python-ags4`