Electronic Data Tags / Blog: Recent posts

EDT and EDTA are quite simple file formats to understand.
A binary file stores a series of numbers as bits (1/0 value), grouped into bytes (8 bits). When Java reads a file, it reads it byte by byte, and each byte is interpreted as an integer. Character encodings map each integer value to a letter, number, or symbol. EDT's Strings (names and values) are stored in the encoding ISO-8859-1. Values 1-8 are unused, so EDT uses them for it's own purposes.... read more

In this post we will go through the use of EDTA.
First, import it:
import htmlguy.edt.advanced.*;

Then, create the EDTAFile:
EDTAFile e = new EDTAFile();

Or, to immediately load from a file, add the location as a parameter:
EDTAFile e = new EDTAFile("MyEdtaFile.edta");

To modify a value, use modValue. However, with EDTA, the value parameter can be a String OR any primitive data type:
e.modValue("MyIntValue",123);... read more

EDT is divided into EDT Basic (Just called EDT) and EDTA (EDT Advanced).
First, let's talk about how EDT works. EDT uses binary data to store named String values ("Tags"). The strings are stored using the encoding ISO-8859-1. To read exactly what integer values EDT uses, see the "EDT and EDTA Specifications" post.
To use EDT, first import EDT Basic:
import htmlguy.edt.basic;

After that, to load/create an EDT file, do the following:
EDTFile e = new EDTFile();... read more