Controls: Gen Dlg >> Stream >> Wave >> Arb

You can use the Txt2Dat utility program to create an Arb or Play file from a list of numbers in an ordinary text file. This is especially useful when the Arb or Play is to be a control sequence instead of a waveform that you could simply record. The Expnote.DAT file was created this way.

Txt2Dat accepts a plain ASCII text file. The values in the file must be integers in the +/-32767 range. They may be one per line, or separated by commas, spaces, or tabs. Having one value per line makes it easy to keep track of how many you have entered, by means of the line number in your editor or word processor.

If you use a word processor or spreadsheet to create this, make sure you save it as .TXT or .CSV (Comma-Separated Variable), not .DOC, .RTF, .HTM, or any native word-processor format.

You can add comments to your file by starting them with a semicolon (;). The remainder of the line will be ignored. Even without a semicolon, any non-digit (other than a negative sign) will also be ignored. Thus, it is possible to insert non-digit comments anywhere before or after the value entry, but this is not generally recommended.

To use Txt2Dat, you invoke it from the DOS command line and give the full name, including extension, of the target file, as in:

Txt2Dat myfile.txt

It doesn't matter what extension you use; it doesn't have to be .TXT, as long as the file actually contains ASCII text. The original file will remain unchanged, and a new file will be created with the same main file name but a .DAT extension.

The .DAT file thus created will be pure 2s-complement binary 16-bit words. You may also create an Arb or Play file by any other means that produces this same format.

Txt2Dat is limited to raw text files no more than 65535 bytes in length. This should be adequate for Arb files up to the limit of 8192 values, though you may not have much room for comments in the largest files. Note that Txt2Dat does not do anything to force the resultant file to any particular length; it is up to you to insure that the raw file contains 1024, 2048, 4096, or 8192 values for use as an Arb file.

If you invoke Txt2Dat with no parameters, a short summary of the above usage description will be displayed.

See also Wave Dialog, Arb Wave.

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