OpenARaw
OpenARaw is one of the vendor readers in
OpenMassSpec, a Rust- and
Python-native stack for proteomics raw-file access. Sibling readers:
OpenTFRaw (Thermo .raw),
OpenWRaw (Waters .raw/),
OpenTimsTDF (Bruker .d/).
OpenARaw is a Rust library that reads Agilent MassHunter .d
mass-spectrometry data directories - the directory-based binary format
produced by Agilent Q-TOF and QQQ instruments running MassHunter
acquisition software.
It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, with no dependency on any Agilent
SDK or software. The format was decoded by clean-room binary analysis of
a public corpus of mass-spectrometry datasets (PRIDE accessions); see
CORPUS.md.
Optional Python bindings are available via the
openaraw wheel.
What it covers
| Component | Status |
|---|---|
MSScan.bin (per-scan index) | supported |
MSPeak.bin (centroid/MRM peak data) | supported |
MSProfile.bin (profile-mode data, LZF) | supported |
MSPeriodicActuals.bin (instrument telemetry) | documented, not yet exposed via the reader API |
MSMassCal.bin (calibration traceability) | documented, not required for reading spectra |
| Q-TOF Auto-MS/MS precursor m/z | supported |
| QQQ MRM precursor mapping | supported |
Validated against 332 of 338 real-world PRIDE .d datasets end to end;
the remaining 6 are malformed source uploads, not format variants - see
Known limitations.
Next steps
- Install the Rust crate or the Python package.
- Run through the Quickstart.
- Read the Format specification for the binary layer.
License
OpenARaw is Apache-2.0 licensed. See License.