[DDI-SRG] Data Formats / Data Types

[Joachim Wackerow]

Arofan and others,

here are some links regarding data types/data formats:

SAS formats
http://support.sas.com/onlinedoc/913/docMainpage.jsp
Path: SAS OnlineDoc / Base SAS / SAS Language Reference: Dictionary / 
Dictionary of Language Elements / Informats

The general SAS approach to describe the formats is at this page (in the 
tree of the page above): Syntax
An overview of the formats: Informats by Category


The SPSS approach is attached. It is a mixture of old-style FORTRAN and 
some pragmatic SPSS stuff. (Not very enlightening)

ISO/IEC FDIS 11404 - Information technology — General-Purpose Datatypes 
(GPD)
http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg11/docs/n506.pdf

Language Independent Datatypes (LID) (old version of ISO 11404)
Appendix D has an example mapping to Pascal
http://www.open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG11/docs/iso11404.pdf

The general drawback with ISO 11404 is, that no mappings to programming 
languages are really available.

Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) (overlap to ISO/IEC 11404)
http://asn1.elibel.tm.fr/en/index.htm
http://asn1.elibel.tm.fr/en/standards/index.htm

Information technology – ASN.1 encoding rules:
Mapping W3C XML schema definitions into ASN.1
http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/studygroups/com17/languages/X694pdf

Regarding the overlap of ISO 11404 and ASN.1 here is a excerpt of an 
email from Frank Farance in 2001:
"We note that the scope of ASN.1 is much wider than that of ISO 11404, 
but not so intensive with respect to distinction and characterization of 
datatypes.  Because of its association with programming languages, a 
major objective of ISO/IEC 11404 is to distinguish types by their 
computational characteristics, not just their values, which is the 
extent of the ASN.1 characterization.  We see these two standards as 
having a large overlap in the identification of datatypes, but 
complementary roles with respect to definition and representation of 
datatypes."


Java scanner class for input conversion of data:
http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/Scanner.html

Java primitive data types:
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/java/nutsandbolts/datatypes.html

C function for input conversion, scanf:
http://linux.die.net/man/3/scanf

FORTRAN format descriptors (see table 1: Format Specifiers)
http://www.aspire.cs.uah.edu/textbook/fortran7008.html
As with SAS three attributes describe a format: the name, the width, and 
an optional number of positions to the right of the decimal point.

Achim

Joachim Wackerow wrote:
> Just in time (sorry for the late posting) here are my notes on data 
> formats / data types and some suggestions.
> 
> Talk to you soon, Achim

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