Pandas Interface and Naming Conventions

[electronsandstuff]

A lot of the data stored in GDF files (for instance, the screens or initial particle distributions) is row-like. I think pandas would be useful here. I don't want to add it as a required dependency, however, so I am thinking of adding some functions to help with pandas import/export, but only have them show up if the user has installed pandas already.

[electronsandstuff]

While I am changing the library, it would also be cool to bring my names more in line with python and call them dump/load. I can also shorten the longer names.

• load(...) - dict reader
• dump(...) - dict writer
• load_particles(...) - alias to open_screens_touts(...)
• load_dist(...) - alias to open_initial_distribution(...)
• dump_particles(...) - alias to save_screens_touts(...)
• dump_dist(...) - alias to save_initial_distribution(...)

I am thinking that the pandas loader could be implemented as a keyword arg.