Creating Data Structures

Once an Altair Binary Format file is created and opened, the structure of the data contained within the file must be specified. The data structure and the data can be specified in one step or the data can be entered after the data structure is specified.

Component names and component data are separate. Each request in a datatype contains the same set of component names but has its own set of data corresponding to each name. For instance, for datatypes with requests each containing X, Y, and Z components, a separate set of XYZ data is assigned to each request.

  1. Use abfNewDatatype() to create a new datatype.
  2. Use abfOpenDatatype() or abfOpenDatatypeByIndex() to open the datatype
  3. Use abfNewRequest() to create a request.
  4. Use abfNewComponent() to create a sub-field (component).
    It is not necessary to open a request to create a component within it, since all requests within a datatype contain the same set of components. However, a datatype must be open. Any requests present in the datatype or added to the datatype later will contain a component by that name.
  5. Repeat this process for all datatypes.