Pipe delimited text (PDT) file format

Pipe delimited text format is a text file format, similar in principle to the more common comma-separated values (CSV) format. PDT is a de facto standard method for delivering data. PDT has been chosen instead of CSV because some of the attributions may contain commas, for example, within addresses. This is one of the simplest data formats in which to supply data. PDT can be imported and used in most desktop spreadsheet or database applications, as well as within more complex geographical information systems.

Once imported, it may be possible, depending on the application, to export to word processing or presentation packages.

Rules for holding Points of Interest in PDT

Points of Interest information in PDT is held within individual fields. Each field is either textual (can contain letters and/or numbers), for example, ‘SO16 0AS’, or numeric, for example, ‘21’. Each field is separated from the next by the ASCII pipe symbol (|), which is a keyboard symbol often found on the backslash key. If the field is textual or should be treated as a character field even when the stored value is a number, then the text is enclosed in double quotes.

Features in PDT format

The following sup page describes the record structure feature which makes up the product, giving the following information about each attribute:

Name and Definition

The name of the attribute and what it is describing.

Condition

Any condition associated with this attribute. (Optional).

Attribute Type

The nature of the attribute, for example, a numeric value or a code list value.

Multiplicity

Describes how many times this element is expected to be populated in the data. An attribute may be optional or mandatory. These are denoted by:

• ‘1’ there must be a value.

• ‘0..1’ population is optional but a maximum of one attribute will be returned.