Agilent Technologies 8719D User Manual page 643

The CITIfile Data Format and Keyword Reference
This appendix contains the following information:
The CITIllle Data Format
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Description and Overview
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Definition Of CITIfile Terms
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The CI'IUle Keyword Reference.
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The CITIfde Data Format
Description and Overview
CITIflle is a standardized data format, used for exchanging data between different computers
and instruments. CITIIlle is an abbreviation for "Common Instrumentation Transfer and
Interchange file". This standard has been a group effort between instrument designers and
designers of computer-aided design programs. As much as possible, CITIfile meets current needs
for data transfer, and it was designed to be expandable so it can meet future needs
CITIfile dehnes how the data inside an ASCII package is formatted. Since it is not tied to any
particular disk or transfer format, it can be used with any operating system (BASIC, DOS,
UNIX, etc), with any disk format (LIF, DOS, 1, etc), or with any transfer mechanism (disk,
LAN, GPIB, etc).
By careful implementation of the standard, instruments and software packages using CITIfile
are able to load and work with data created on another instrument or computer. It is possible,
for example, for a network analyzer to directly load and display data measured on a scalar
analyzer, or for a software package running on a computer to read data measured on the
network analyzer.
Data Formats
There are two main types of data formats: binary and ASCII. CITIfile uses the ASCII text
format. While this format does take up more bytes of space than a binary format, ASCII data
is a transportable, standard type of format which is supported by all operating systems In
addition, the ASCII format is accepted by most text editors. This allows files to be created,
examined, and edited easily, making CITIIlle easier to test and debug.
File and Operating System Formats
CITIfile was designed to be independent of the data storage mechanism, and therefore may
be implemented for any file system. However transfer between Ille systems may sometimes
be necessary. Any commercially available software that has the ability to transfer ASCII files
between systems may be used to transfer CITIflle data.
The ClTlfile Data Fomat and Keyword Reference
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