Data Representation (MKD File Format) Changed in Version 2019.1

The open CAD6 File format MKD uses four standard data types similar to data types used in Ansi C - bool, char, int and double. All further data types are based on these four standard data types. To indicate the logical relation between the data types defined in MKD and similar data types in the CAD6interface, they both use the same name even though they are defined in a different manor (textual representation vs. binary representation).

All data types are displayed in their "natural" form, i.e. numbers in decimal or exponential notation, and texts as a UTF-8 character string delimited by the character " (Ansi 34). Single values are separated by the character , (Ansi 44), data blocks, entities and sections are terminated by the character ; (Ansi 59).

Comments may occur between values and their separators. A comment is a character string delimited by the character | (Ansi 124). Comments may not be placed inside a numeric value or inside a text (of course the character | may occur inside a text, but it will not be interpreted as a comment delimiter in this case). Control characters like line-feed, carriage-return, tab, space and all other characters from Ansi 0 to Ansi 32 are ignored if they do not occur inside a text.

In order to keep the resulting file as small as possible, numeric values may be "empty", i.e. there is no character between the separators. In this case, the value is defined to be zero. Example:

,,8|Data Type Text|,500|Max. 500 Bytes|,"Hello";

This line contains 5 values and some comments. The data line uses "empty" values and is equal to the following line:

0,0,8 |Data Type Text| ,500 |Max. 500 Bytes| ,"Hello";

As comments and spaces are ignored when reading the file, the data line looks to the reading application as follows:

0,0,8,500,"Hello";

When showing element sequences in the descriptions, some values will be underlined. Those "values" are only names of placeholders that have to be replaced with an explicit value in the MKD file. For example:

BlockOwner,0,3,1,Coordinates;

In this example, the values BlockOwner and Coordinates are placeholders for explicit values. A detailed description on those values will follow in the text.

Line-feeds, comments and spaces shown in examples are only a suggestion, they are not required. Usually, lines in MKD files should not be longer than 255 characters, as some text editors have limitations in line length.