This format has the same features and restrictions that the CSV format, the difference is the separator between fields in PRN format are spaces. However, the spaces in PRN format have a different role than in CVS files.
The characteristics of these files are the following:
The first record in a PRN file may be a header record containing name of the columns.
Each record in a file with headers in columns can have less fields than the number of headers. In this case, empty values are considered missing values.
Each row must have the same number of fields separated by spaces.
Several spaces together will be treated as a single space.
The spaces at the beginning or end of the line indicated null values.
The separation symbol for decimals numbers is a point instead of a comma.
Each record is one line terminated by a newline character or a carriage return.
The blank lines will be ignored.
The fields can contain double quote, carriage return (or any other character).
Fields that contain space character as value must be surounded by double-quotes.
A record with a single field without any value must have the requirements of type text to prevent that it is not ignored.
The last record in a file can be finished or not with the end of line symbol.
These files are stored by default, with the extension ".prn".
The PRN files have the data separated by blank spaces. So, these data files must have the following format:
attribute1 attribute2
... attributeN value11 value12 ... value1N ... valueM1 valueM2 ... valueMN |
One example of a valid PRN file is the following:
OBS DELL GE YAHOO 1 26.99 48.5 22.92 2 26 49.93 20.83 3 26.24 49.96 20.13 4 25.76 49.48 19.98 5 26.73 49.43 19.74 6 24.93 49.83 18.86 7 25.84 49.01 18.23 8 25.91 49.73 17.79 9 24.6 50.15 17.1
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