KEYWORDS
Introduction
A file in accordance with the geotechnical exchange format can be divided into two parts: the header and the data block. The header describes how the registered data is organised in directly readable text. Keywords are used for this purpose. A keyword is preceded by a ‘#’ character. A ‘=’ character follows the keyword. The keyword is therefore enclosed between the ‘#’ and the ‘=’. Some examples of correct and incorrect keywords are given in Table 1.
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Keyword | Evaluation |
#COLUMN = 2 | Correct |
#COlumN = 2 | Correct |
# COLUMN = 2 | Correct |
#column= 2 | Correct |
#Column = 2 | Correct |
#COLUMN 2 | Incorrect, the equals sign is missing |
COLUMN= 2 | Incorrect, the # is missing |
#CO LUMN = 2 | Incorrect, spaces within a keyword |
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Several conditions exist for keywords and their information. A keyword with accompanying information must always be on one line: no ‘end of line’ LF or CRLF may appear in the information. If the information following the ‘=’ characters consists of several parts, it is separated by commas. The end of the information is specified by the start of a new keyword with a hash (#).
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Several conditions must be met if the test is to be meaningful: a minimum description of how the file is organised must be known. This leads to a division of keywords into compulsory, non compulsory and conditionally compulsory keywords. The last category consists of keywords which are in fact compulsory, but for which a default value has been filled in. If the word is therefore not listed, the standard value is used. If the default value is not suitable as a result of another keyword, the word must still be given. It is therefore compulsory under certain conditions. The compulsory keywords are given in Table 2
Compulsory keywords.
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Keyword | Keyword |
#GEFID = | #COLUMN = |
#FILEDATE = | #COLUMNINFO = |
#PROJECTID = | #EOH = |
#FILEOWNER = |
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Table 2 forms the minimum subset of keywords. A file which complies with the geotechnical exchange format uses of all these keywords at least. If one or more of the compulsory keywords are missing then an application should stop automatically processing the data and signal the missing keyword. The test is incomplete. Optionally, the application can query the user so that the missing information can be found. The remaining keywords are given in Table 3.
Non-compulsory keywords.
| Table 3 Non compulsory and conditionally compulsory keywords | Top |
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| Keyword | Keyword | Keyword |
| #ANALYSISCODE= | #LASTSCAN= | #SCANFREQ= |
| #ANALYSISTEXT= | #MEASUREMENTCODE= | #SCANTIME= |
| #ANALYSISVAR= | #MEASUREMENTTEXT= | #SETUPCODE= |
| #CHILD= | #MEASUREMENTVAR= | #SETUPTEXT= |
| #COLUMNMINMAX= | #OBJECTID= | #SETUPVAR= |
| #COLUMNSEPARATOR= | #OS= | #SPECIMENCODE= |
| #COLUMNTEXT= | #PARENT= | #SPECIMENTEXT= |
| #COLUMNVOID= | #PROJECTNAME= | #SPECIMENVAR= |
| #COMMENT= | #PROCEDURECODE= | #STARTDATE= |
| #COMPANYID= | #QNMINMAX= | #STARTTIME= |
| #DATAFORMAT= | #QNTIME= | #STRUCTURETEXT= |
| #DATATYPE= | #QNVOID= | #STRUCTURETYPE= |
| #EQUIPMENT= | #RECORDSEPARATOR= | #TESTID= |
#FILINGCODE= | #REPORTCODE= | #TIMECOLUMN= |
#FILINGTEXT= | #REPORTDATAFORMAT= | #XYID= |
| #FILINGVAR= | #REPORTTEXT= | #ZID= |
| #FIRSTSCAN= | #REPORTVAR= | |
| #LANGUAGE= | #ROW= |
The keywords are subdivided into four logical categories:
File tracing
File descriptive
Data descriptive
Procedure descriptive
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Parts of the information following keywords which can be omitted are given between [] in the typescript. Abbreviations are used to characterise the information, as given in Table 4. E.g. 4Value represents a value of 4 bytes in size, sUnit states a string which describes the unit.
Data types.
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| Top | Type | Description | Number of bytes | Example | |
byte | flag | 1 | 1 | ||
char | separator | 1 | ; | ||
int2 | integer number | 2 | -30000 | ||
long | integer number | 4 | 2123456789 | ||
int4 | integer number | 4 | 2123456789 | ||
real4 | decimal number | 4 | -3.14159 | ||
float | decimal number | 4 | -3.14159 | ||
real8 | decimal number | 8 | 6.62×10-34 | ||
double | decimal number | 8 | 6.62×10-34 | ||
string | text | variable | Measurement | Versions | Top |
The set of keywords is not static. Keywords may be added, keywords may become obsolete. Therefore there are versions. Versions keep track which keywords are allowed. The version of the GEF language which is used in a file, is expressed by its GEFID. By reading the GEFID any functions processing a GEF file, can determine whether the software has sufficient capabilities to process this file. Currently there are three legitimate versions of a GEF file:
- 1, 0, 0 This is the original version. [1999].
- 1, 1, 0 This version adds two new keywords. [2000]
- 2, 0, 0 This release adds seven new keywords. Three others became obsolete. [2007]
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