SPECIFICATION OF ASCII FILE FORMAT          PA3.00           PAGE 1 OF 9

To "import" current quotes from an external file into the Personal Port-
folio Analyzer, type E to invoke the ENTER or import function from the
Master Menu.  This takes you to the Current Quote screen.  Then type
I to invoke the IMPORT function.  (Alphabetic I, not the number 1).
The position of the selector block is not relevant here.

If you have imported data before, the program will ask if you want to
use the same file.  Respond (N)o if you are using a different file (or a
different file format).  The next step is to specify the order in which
the data items appear on the ASCII input file.

The data to be "imported" must be in ASCII (say "askee") format, because
this is a universal format which can be understood by most communica-
tions, spreadsheet and database programs.  ASCII is a standard which
describes the bit patterns used for computer storage of individual
letters, digits, puncutation and special characters.  For example the
capital letter "A" has the bit pattern 01000001.  Most personal compu-
ters can recognize ASCII.  Textual information, such as what you are
reading now, is usually stored in ASCII format.


SPECIFICATION OF ASCII FILE FORMAT                           PAGE 2 OF 9

Numbers must be in a binary format before they can be used in calcula-
tions by a computer.  The Personal Portfolio Analyzer stores current
price quotes and other information in a binary format.  Therefore,
numbers in ASCII must be "translated" to binary before they are useful
for calculations.

In the ASCII input file, the lines can be in any order.  The program
looks for and processes only those individual lines which contain valid
data.  Lines which contain column headings, explanatory information,
advertising, communications protocol and other things are ignored.
Normally all of the information for one security will always be on one
line.  The data items for each security can be in any order; and items
not wanted, such as dates, can be skipped.

Normally, the first data item the program looks for on each line is a
valid ticker symbol.  (See the latter part of this chapter about an
exception with CompuServe).  If this symbol does not exist in the
catalog, the line is ignored.



SPECIFICATION OF ASCII FILE FORMAT                           PAGE 3 OF 9

When a symbol is found that exists in the catalog, the program will scan
that line from left to right and look for valid data items.  If the re-
quired data items are found, they will be converted to binary format.
The number values are checked for "reasonableness"; any error will cause
that line to be discarded. 

Data items must be separated by blank spaces or other non-numeric char-
acters.  Either fractional or decimal values are acceptable.  Fractions
must be separated from their corresponding whole numbers by one and only
one blank space.

The program will ignore characters such as * to indicate ex-dividend.
It will also ignore any quote marks or commas that may be used to separ-
ate data items.  Thus, it will accept data in the CSV, or comma-separ-
ated value, format which is used by some database programs.  It is the
responsibility of the user, in the process of using the external com-
munications or other program of his or her choice, to make sure the
required data items are available.



SPECIFICATION OF ASCII FILE FORMAT                           PAGE 4 OF 9

Examples of acceptable data:
       IBM   *120   109 3/4  110 1/2  110375    (* is ignored)
       "SGAT",15.25,14,14.875,56259   (this is the CSV format)
       fg   31.125 29 30.5 4075       (lowercase stock symbol is OK)

Before you can actually "import" data, you must specify the sequence in
which data items appear in the external file.  This sequence may vary,
depending on what source the data comes from.  The required data items
must be in the same order on each line on which they appear.

Each required data item is identified by a letter of the alphabet, such
as T for Ticker symbol, C for Closing price (or net asset value) and R
to Reject certain data items the program doesn't use.  The sequence in
which data items appear in the input is specified by typing those
letters in a corresponding sequence, for example TRRRC for ticker-
volume-high-low-close (the program does not use the volume, high or low
so they are rejected).  If you don't know the sequence, you can usually
find out by visual inspection after displaying the file on the screen or
printer.  Usually the program that created the file can also display it. 


SPECIFICATION OF ASCII FILE FORMAT                           PAGE 5 OF 9

To skip over a data item you don't want to use, type the letter "R" if
it is a security price (high/ask/low/bid/open etc.); otherwise type the
letter "S".  In general you can use "S" to skip any data item, UNLESS it
might contain a number with a fractional value such as 2 11/16.  "S"
skips anything delimited by blank spaces or double quotes, so it won't
work on fractions.  That's why you have to use "R" to consistently skip
over numeric values that may or may not contain fractions.  Either "R"
or "S" will work with whole numbers and decimal values.

For example when receiving current quotes from Dow Jones Information
Services, the data items are in order by ticker symbol, bid/close, ask/
open, high, low, last, and volume.  The "bid/close" is the previous
day's closing price and "ask/open" is today's opening price, which the
program does not use.  It also does not use the high or low price of
the day.  The current day's closing price is actually in the column
labelled LAST.  Therefore, you type the letters TRRRRCS to specify the
data item sequence.  You MUST specify where the stock symbol is; the
program does NOT assume the stock symbol is the first item on each line.



SPECIFICATION OF ASCII FILE FORMAT                           PAGE 6 OF 9

NOTE:  The program requires the ticker symbol and the closing price or
net asset value (NAV).  All other data items must be skipped.  Use S
instead of R to skip any contiguous field such as the time of day or the
sales volume.

WARNING:  Make sure you pick up the CLOSING price and not the high, low
or open.  That's why correct use of the "R" is so important.

Data items that appear in the input data AFTER the last item you want do
not have to be specified.  For example, assume you want to pick up only
the current closing price, and that each input line contains the time,
ticker symbol, previous close, current high-low-close and volume.  In
this case you would specify STRRRC.  The volume would be ignored.
Remember, you MUST specify the ticker symbol, but it need not be the
first item in the line.






SPECIFICATION OF ASCII FILE FORMAT                           PAGE 7 OF 9

After specification of the input data format, the program will ask you
to enter the name of the ASCII file.  Here you enter the complete file
specification including sub-directory, filename and extension, such as
\DJEZLINK\ONLINE.DOW.  The ASCII file can be in any directory on any
drive.  Once this is done the actual "importing" begins.

HINT:  If your communications program can do it, put the ASCII file in
the Personal Portfolio Analyzer's PROGRAM directory.  Then you won't
have to enter the path name - just the filename.  Make the filename
short, such as UPD.ASC, to reduce repetitive keystrokes.

After the "translation" process is finished, the program will ask for
the date for which these prices are current.  You can enter any date
that is not later than the current date which the program gets from DOS.
This date is used to select data for market value reports.  It will
appear on the reports, and can be either a beginning or ending date on
the GAIN/LOSS reports.




SPECIFICATION OF ASCII FILE FORMAT                           PAGE 8 OF 9

After the "translation" process is finished, the data is shown on the
screen and you can inspect it.  If you got little or no data, the most
likely cause is the data items are not in the same order that you speci-
fied.  You should visually inspect both the incoming ASCII data and the
resulting Personal Portfolio Analyzer data to make sure everything is
reasonable and apparently correct.  Glitches on the telephone line (when
receiving data through a modem), or garbage in the data, can cause in-
formation to be lost in the translation process.

If you have persistent problems, there is a slight possibility that you
might have to use a word processor or text editor to edit the ASCII data
file to get rid of garbage, before "importing" it.

NOTE: The Import function does not actually update the current price
quotes, even though you can view them.  This process is not automatic,
to give you an opportunity to inspect the data and specify whether this
data applies to a beginning (historical) date or an ending (usually cur-
rent) date.  See Chapter 14 for more information.



SPECIFICATION OF ASCII FILE FORMAT                           PAGE 9 OF 9

If you use CompuServe or any other database service which splits the
information for each security among two or more lines, use the letter G
to skip a line in the ASCII file.  For example, suppose this is your
input data for each stock:

STOCK IBM 11:54:07 EST

 DATE       CLOSE      OPEN      ASK       BID
                                HIGH       LOW      LAST      VOL (100s)

9/6/91     102 1/8     102     102 7/8   100 3/4   102 3/8     13456

To "import" this data, specify the format STGGGSRRRRC.  The first "S"
skips over the word STOCK (otherwise the program will think that is a
ticker symbol!).  The T picks up the real ticker, IBM.  GGG skips 3
lines, ignoring the time and EST (you don't have to explicitly skip
empty lines).  The second S skips the date and RRRR skips the previous
close, today's open and the high and low.  Finally the C picks up the
current closing price (under LAST), and the volume (VOL) is ignored.
You might consider writing the format down once it is working.
