Data Interchange Format

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The first number in the number pairs indicates the type of value represented by the other number and the string on the next line.
 
The first number in the number pairs indicates the type of value represented by the other number and the string on the next line.
  
== Links ==
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The format has also been called "Navy DIF" and "Lotus DIF", though it was not created by the Navy or Lotus.
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== Format description ==
 
* [[Wikipedia:Data Interchange Format|Wikipedia article]]
 
* [[Wikipedia:Data Interchange Format|Wikipedia article]]
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* [http://www.fileformat.info/format/dif/egff.htm Description in fileformat.info]
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* [http://newcenturycomputers.net/projects/dif.html Documentation from Python module for DIF]
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== Software ==
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* [https://github.com/ziggythehamster/ruby-navy-dif Ruby program for handling DIF]

Revision as of 22:43, 1 June 2013

File Format
Name Data Interchange Format
Ontology
Extension(s) .dif

Data Interchange Format (DIF) was created in the early 1980s by the makers of VisiCalc (Software Arts) as a format for exporting and importing spreadsheet data between different programs and platforms. VisiCalc had an option to save in this format in place of its native one, and it could be imported into a number of other programs which implemented the standard. (But reportedly some versions of Microsoft programs botched it up and misinterpreted some of the elements, interchanging VECTORS with TUPLES.)

DIF is an ASCII-based format (newer implementations support other Character Encodings as well) with two sections, a header and data. Each section is divided into chunks, which are 3 lines long in the headers and 2 lines in the data. The first line of a header chunk is an all-capital-letters chunk type name; the second line is a pair of numbers separated by a comma; and the third line is a quoted string. Data chunks have one line with a pair of numbers and one line with a quoted string or keyword.

The first number in the number pairs indicates the type of value represented by the other number and the string on the next line.

The format has also been called "Navy DIF" and "Lotus DIF", though it was not created by the Navy or Lotus.

Format description

Software

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