Programming File Import

You might consider programming your file import in the following cases:

• You want to import many files at once.

• The data files are not ASCII, simple binary or any supported third party file format.

• The file header of an ASCII file is very special. You want to use user-defined functions to extract variables from it.

For the first case, you can write a Labtalk script to automate the importing, if the files are ASCII or of any supported third party file formats.

When your data files are of un-supported formats, you can import them with the Import Wizard as User-Defined files, providing that the import instructions in the form of an Origin C function are supplied. The Origin C source file, which contains the function, can be specified in the User Defined Filters page of the Import Wizard.

Writing an Origin C function to extract variables from the header provides you more control than the Import Wizard offers. In the Extract Variable page of the Import Wizard, you can enter the source file and the function name to specify the function that performs the variable extraction.