Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

How do I interpret a record from an ASCII data file?

Data files in SAMHDA are usually distributed as columnar ASCII files that consist of rows and columns of alphanumeric characters. Since ASCII data files are text files, they can be opened in any word processing program or Internet browser. However, the alphanumeric characters are not meaningful without the help of a codebook or setup files to identify the columns of the ASCII data file as particular variables.

Was this helpful?
Was this helpful?
I did not find the pages helpful because the content on the page: (check all that apply)
I did not find the pages helpful checkboxes