User's Manual

cs5bin2ascii (PD-04.01)

Page 2 of 5

Revision 1

February 20

, 2014

II. Convert data to ASCII

cs5bin2ascii is a program for creating text files of position- or amplitude-files (saved as binary

data). The created files can then be viewed and edited with simple text editors or complex

spreadsheet programs like excel. The conversion of the files is done non-destructive which

means that for every source file a new text file with the same name but a “txt”-file extension is

created (“0001.txt” for “0001.pos”). The original data remain untouched.

Using cs5bin2ascii

1. Choosing directories

Figure 1: Choosing directory and source pattern

The source directory is the folder containing the binary data files that need to be converted to

ASCII. The starting directory is /data/recorder. You can choose the folder containing your binary

data (amplitude- (amp-files) or position-files (pos-files)) via a directory dialog (Figure 1 (1)). The

program detects how many amp- or pos-files are in the chosen directory (Figure 2 (1)) and it will

warn you if neither file-type is found.

2. Choosing a source pattern

The source pattern (Figure 1 (2)) defines the pattern of the file names that need to be converted

to ASCII omitting the file extension (“pos” or “amp”). By default the asterisk (*), which is a wildcard

for an arbitrary string, is selected. This means that for every pos-file (respectively amp-file) in the

chosen directory a file containing the equivalent ASCII-data will be created.

You can change the source pattern to refine the files for which ASCII-data need to be created. As

mentioned, the asterisk (*) stands for an arbitrary string in the file name so the source pattern “a*”

will mark any file starting with an “a” for conversion.

The question mark (?) is the wildcard for exactly one character. So if for instance the pos-files in

your source directory are named “0001.pos” to “0123.pos” the source pattern “002?” will mark the

files “0020.pos” to “0029.pos” for conversion.