Data Interchange Format

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Data Interchange Format ( .dif) is a text file - format , which is used to individual worksheets between spreadsheets ( OpenOffice.org Calc , Excel , Gnumeric , StarCalc , Lotus 1-2-3 , FileMaker , dBase , Framework , Multiplan to etc.) import / export. It is also known as the Navy DIF . One limitation is that the DIF format cannot handle multiple worksheets in one file.

history

DIF was developed in the early 1980s by Software Arts, Inc. (the developers of the Visicalc program). The specification was included in many versions of Visicalc and was also published in Byte magazine. Bob Frankston developed the format with the help of others, including a. Mitch Kapor who made it work with his VisiPlot program. (Kapor later founded Lotus and developed Lotus 1-2-3 .) The specification was copyrighted in 1981.

DIF was a registered trademark of Software Arts Products Corporation (the official name of Software Arts at the time).

syntax

The DIF format saves the data in an ASCII text file in order to avoid relevant cross-platform problems at the time of its development. Modern spreadsheet programs such as OpenOffice.org Calc and Gnumeric, on the other hand, can use different character sets for their import / export functions. A DIF file is divided into two areas: the header and the data. Everything in a DIF file is presented in two- or three-line segments. Headers are three lines long, data two. Header sections begin with a text identifier that consists of a maximum of 31 capital letters. The following line must contain a pair of digits and the third must be a quoted string. Data sections start with a pair of digits and the text line is a quoted string or a keyword.

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