# GRASS Help System

## MOVING DATA TO ANOTHER COMPUTER (ASCII/BINARY CONVERSION)

One form of data conversion is the conversion of data in ASCII format to and from binary format. American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is a "standard seven-bit character code by which information is stored and transmitted in a computer or a data transmission system" (OED). The 128 characters in the ASCII character set are produced by combinations of the shift and control keys with the other keys. All its characters are of a fixed, seven-bit length. Files in ASCII format can be read by the user.

In binary format, data are represented as a series of 0's and 1's. A binary digit (0 or 1) is called a "bit" of information. Files are put in binary format to put them in a code that the computer can understand. Binary format is machine-readable. Typically, users cannot read files in binary format.

The commands listed below are useful to those importing and exporting data to and from GRASS and when converting data among various file formats. They perform ASCII/binary data conversions.

Commands with the extension ".in.ascii" produce binary files from ASCII input. Commands with the ".out.ascii" extension produce ASCII output from binary input.

Commands with the ".in.dlg" extension produce GRASS vector format from DLG-3 Optional format input. Commands with the "out.dlg" extension produce DLG-3 Optional format output from GRASS vector format input.

GRASS programs that convert GRASS programs that convert
ASCII data to Binary format: Binary data to ASCII format:

       ===================================================================

- r.in.ascii - r.out.ascii
- s.in.ascii - s.out.ascii
- v.in.ascii - v.out.ascii
- v.in.dlg - v.out.dlg
- v.import - v.import

For more information on a specific command, select a command and press ESC.

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Automatically created on: Thu Oct 13 02:16:43 2005