How To: Read P3 files

A Primavera P3 installation stores project data as a database consisting of a number of individual files. In a typical P3 installation files for a number of different projects live in a single projects directory. A P3 user can back up an individual project to create a PRX file, which is a compressed archive containing all of the files from a single project.

Reading PRX files

The simplest way to read a PRX file is to use the UniversalProjectReader:

import net.sf.mpxj.ProjectFile;
import net.sf.mpxj.reader.UniversalProjectReader;

// ...

UniversalProjectReader reader = new UniversalProjectReader();
ProjectFile project = reader.read("my-sample.prx");

You can work directly with the P3PRXFileReader by replacing UniversalProjectReader with P3PRXFileReader, although this offers no particular advantage as there are no additional configuration settings available on the P3PRXFileReader class.

Reading a P3 directory

If you are working with a directory containing P3 project data you have two options. If you know that the directory only contains a single project, you can use the UniversalProjectReader:

import net.sf.mpxj.ProjectFile;
import net.sf.mpxj.reader.UniversalProjectReader;

// ...

UniversalProjectReader reader = new UniversalProjectReader();
ProjectFile project = reader.read("my-p3-directory");

If the directory happens to contain multiple projects the UniversalProjectReader will simply read the first one it finds, in alphabetic order.

If you know that the directory you are working with contains multiple projects, you will need to use the P3DatabaseReader class.

import java.util.List;
import net.sf.mpxj.ProjectFile;
import net.sf.mpxj.primavera.p3.P3DatabaseReader;

// ...

// Find a list of the project names
String directory = "my-p3-directory";
List<String> projectNames = P3DatabaseReader.listProjectNames(directory);

// Tell the reader which project to work with
P3DatabaseReader reader = new P3DatabaseReader();
reader.setProjectName(projectNames.get(0));

// Read the project
ProjectFile project = reader.read(directory);

As the example above shows, the P3DatabaseReader class provides a method which lists the names of the P3 projects it finds in a directory. You can then select which project you want to load, and call the setProjectName method of the reader to make this selection. You can then call the read method passing in the name of the directory, and the reader will extract data for the selected project.