Interface > Working with Data Exchange Formats > Neutral Files > Importing Neutral Files > Format of Neutral Files
  
Format of Neutral Files
A Neutral file consists of lines of ASCII text. The format has the following elements:
A line beginning with the character # is a comment.
A line not beginning with the character # is of the form:
level field value
where:
level is an integer
field is a name
value is a string that can be present
A field must be one of the following:
The name of a simple data type (integer, string, real, and so on)
The name of an array
The name of a structure
The name of a pointer to a structure
All the fields on a particular level belong to the same parent.
When value is present at a certain level and begins with the left square bracket character ([), or consists of a series of digits separated by commas, it indicates that field is an array of dimension [n]([m] ...). The array element values are contained on the lines level+1 up to the next line starting with level again.
For one-dimensional arrays, only one line is at the higher level whose value is a string of element values separated by commas.
The notation< n*m> indicates the following <n> elements each have the value <m>.
When value is present at a certain level (and is not the string ->), this is the value to be assigned to field.
When value is absent at a certain level, this indicates that field is a structure. Immediate elements of the aggregate are contained on lines level+1 up to next line starting with level again.
The line whose field is the string ugc_xar_len is a special case indicating that the next line begins the description of an array of length value.
When value is the string ->, this indicates that field is a pointer to an aggregate whose elements follow.
The special value string NULL indicates that the field is a pointer whose value is null.