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Using the Pattern Generator
ASCII File Commands
Any characters that are not valid hexadecimal digits (0 through 9, or
upper/lower case a through f) are ignored and treated as field
separators. This could cause problems if a typo appears in the middle
of a data value (for example, ’12R4’ will be assigned to two labels as ’12’
and ’4’).
The last data row of the file must end with a line termination as this is
the flag to load the data row into the data structure. Failure to do this
will result in a short main program.
When counting file characters be aware of how a particular file
generator (editor) terminates a line. DOS-based systems use two
characters. Be sure to account for line termination character(s) in the
overall file character count.
The ASCII file load mechanism assumes correctness in the data file and
any header commands. Error handling is rather basic, and treating
unexpected characters as field separators could create bizarre results
when parsing the file. Error messages point to the line number where
the parser thinks the error occurred, but the line count may not be
exact because of parsing problems with the data.
When using a LAN interface to send AS CII data, an extra line feed <lf>
is required at the end of the file. This <lf> is NOT included in the
<char_count> value. It is required to ensure the data buffer is flushed.
Serious problems will cause the default main program to be loaded in
an effort to avoid locking up the 1670G-series system.