Murphy R F, Chused T M
Cytometry. 1984 Sep;5(5):553-5. doi: 10.1002/cyto.990050521.
The increasing complexity of multiparameter data collection and analysis in flow cytometry and the development of relatively inexpensive arc-lamp-based flow cytometers, which increases the probability that laboratories or institutions may have more than one type of instrument, creates a need for shareable analysis programs and for the transport of flow cytometric data files within an installation or from one institution to another. To address this need, we propose a standard file format to be used for all flow cytometric data. The general principles of this proposal are: (1) The data file will contain a minimum of three segments, TEXT, DATA, and ANALYSIS; (2) The TEXT and ANALYSIS segments consist of KEYWORDS, which are the names of data fields, and their values; (3) All TEXT is encoded in ASCII; (4) KEYWORDS and their values may be of any length; (5) Certain KEYWORDS will be standard, i.e., having specified formats to be recognized by all programs. The structure of the DATA segment will be uniquely defined by the values of KEYWORDS in the TEXT area. It may be in any bit resolution, facilitating compatibility between machines with different word length and/or allowing bit compression of the data. The structured nature of the TEXT area should facilitate management of flow cytometric data using existing data base management systems. The proposed file format has been implemented on VAX, PDP-11, and HP9920 based flow cytometry data acquisition systems.
流式细胞术中多参数数据收集和分析的复杂性日益增加，以及相对廉价的基于弧光灯的流式细胞仪的发展，这增加了实验室或机构可能拥有不止一种类型仪器的可能性，从而产生了对可共享分析程序以及在一个设施内或从一个机构到另一个机构传输流式细胞术数据文件的需求。为满足这一需求，我们提出一种用于所有流式细胞术数据的标准文件格式。该提议的一般原则是：（1）数据文件将至少包含三个部分，即文本（TEXT）、数据（DATA）和分析（ANALYSIS）；（2）文本和分析部分由关键字组成，关键字是数据字段的名称及其值；（3）所有文本均采用ASCII编码；（4）关键字及其值可以是任意长度；（5）某些关键字将是标准的，即具有所有程序都能识别的指定格式。数据部分的结构将由文本区域中关键字的值唯一确定。它可以是任何位分辨率，便于不同字长的机器之间的兼容性和/或允许对数据进行位压缩。文本区域的结构化性质应便于使用现有的数据库管理系统来管理流式细胞术数据。提议的文件格式已在基于VAX、PDP - 11和HP9920的流式细胞术数据采集系统上实现。
