Data file format

The archive uses two standard formats to store data, one plain text (ASCII) and one binary. These formats contain the same data and are interchangeable. These storage formats are more general than most of the abbreviated formats used for data submission. (For submission formats, see "Formatting the data" here).

The current data format is based on trials, each of which is composed of records. This format may be modified to be more general in the future to accommodate data sets that do not fit conveniently in a trial-based format.