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I am processing a file which I need to split based on the separator.

The following code shows the separators defined for the files I am processing

private static final String    component   = Character.toString((char) 31);
private static final String    data        = Character.toString((char) 29);
private static final String    segment     = Character.toString((char) 28);

Can someone please explain the significance of these specific separators?

Looking at the ASCII codes, these separators are file, group and unit separators. I don't really understand what this means.

Mark Amery
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ziggy
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3 Answers3

34

Found this here. Cool website!

28 – FS – File separator The file separator FS is an interesting control code, as it gives us insight in the way that computer technology was organized in the sixties. We are now used to random access media like RAM and magnetic disks, but when the ASCII standard was defined, most data was serial. I am not only talking about serial communications, but also about serial storage like punch cards, paper tape and magnetic tapes. In such a situation it is clearly efficient to have a single control code to signal the separation of two files. The FS was defined for this purpose.

29 – GS – Group separator Data storage was one of the main reasons for some control codes to get in the ASCII definition. Databases are most of the time setup with tables, containing records. All records in one table have the same type, but records of different tables can be different. The group separator GS is defined to separate tables in a serial data storage system. Note that the word table wasn't used at that moment and the ASCII people called it a group.

30 – RS – Record separator Within a group (or table) the records are separated with RS or record separator.

31 – US – Unit separator The smallest data items to be stored in a database are called units in the ASCII definition. We would call them field now. The unit separator separates these fields in a serial data storage environment. Most current database implementations require that fields of most types have a fixed length. Enough space in the record is allocated to store the largest possible member of each field, even if this is not necessary in most cases. This costs a large amount of space in many situations. The US control code allows all fields to have a variable length. If data storage space is limited—as in the sixties—this is a good way to preserve valuable space. On the other hand is serial storage far less efficient than the table driven RAM and disk implementations of modern times. I can't imagine a situation where modern SQL databases are run with the data stored on paper tape or magnetic reels...

Community
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geaw35
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    I like this answer better! It saves me reading a lot extra and addresses the question directly. – talkaboutquality Apr 10 '13 at 18:13
  • Though it would benefit just from adding the decimal ASCII codes that were given in the chosen answer. Also, since I came here to help me get rid of these codes out of a text file I saved from a chat app, giving the hex codes would be nice too: 1C, 1D, and 1F. For how to write in regex, btw, see here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3203190/regex-any-ascii-character – talkaboutquality Apr 10 '13 at 18:21
3

The ascii control characters range from 28-31. (0x1C to 0x1F)

31 Unit Separator
30 Record Separator
29 Group Separator
28 File Separator

Sample invocation:

char record_separator = 0x1F;
String s = "hello" + record_separator + "world"
Balaji Boggaram Ramanarayan
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These characters are control characters. They're not meant to be written or read by humans, but by computers. You should treat them in your program like any other character.

JB Nizet
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