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ID TECH EzWriter
The Usage file in this example was created using Notepad. The Usage file has two
functions: it may contain the Card Type and card Setup format rules “[SETTING]”; it must
contain a data definition “[DATA]”. The Card Type and card format SETTING parameters
are the same Card Types as in the WorkShop window and the same formatting parameters
found in the WorkShop Setup tabs. The SETTING rules, if used, are used for all cards
written. In the example shown, no SETTING rules are specified; they are ignored by the
WorkShop database function because of the double forward slashes placed at the
beginning of each line in the SETTING section. If no SETTING rules are specified, the
WorkShop database function uses the default ISO 7811 formatting norms.
The information (data) written to a card can has two sources. There is a fixed data source
and a variable data source. The DATA definition in the Usage file specifies the fixed card
data information and specifies the source of the variable card data information. The Usage
file DATA definition has three rows. Each row specifies the data to be written on one track;
the first row specifies the data for track one, the second row for track two and the third row
for track three. Each card is written as specified by the DATA definition; each card written
can have unique data written on the tracks because the variable data is being sourced from
the database file.
The Data Usage file Fixed data is defined and directly used from the Usage file as
character fields written to a card; the fields cannot contain characters not allowed for the
defined track format. In other words, tracks written with five bits per character can use only
Appendix B, Table 2 characters; likewise, tracks written with seven bits per character can
use the character set in Appendix B, Table 1.
Variable data written to the cards is specified by two characters that define the Data
Columns in the Database file. The two characters have a fixed format. The first character
is a lower case “f” followed by a second “Column” letter (a through z). The variable names
correspond to the column letter in an Excel
csv
file. The Data Column variable data and
the Usage file fixed track data can be mixed in the Usage file DATA definition.
An example database is provided with the WorkShop Utility files. That example is used
here to show the format. The example does not define the SETTING rules; the rules are
shown and are ignored by the WorkShop Database Application (any line in the User file
that starts with two forward slash characters // is ignored). When no SETTING rules are
defined, ISO Standard parameters are the default. The DATA definition specifies the data
to write on the three tracks. When there is no data specified for a track, the track is not
written. The
csv
file has 10 rows; therefore, ten cards can be written. Each card is written
with variable data from one of the ten rows, starting with row one.
