About the CFS2EXEL program

The program is intended to convert CFS data files, typically from SIGAVG or CHART, into a form suitable for import into Excel. It only works with CFS files which are equally spaced integer data - such as standard SIGAVG files.

A major limitation with Excel is that it can only read in 215 columns. In practice most experiments contain more points than that, so the program swaps the data round, and it is read into Excel with successive columns containing the sampled points from successive trials. The first column contains the X axis values expressed in milliseconds. If your CFS file contains more then 215 samples, you still won't be able to read the data into Excel.

Download the file set as a self-expander runme.exe (31,955 bytes)

Running the program

The program works with a parameter file. This file is called defaul.def and must be in the same directory as the main program. Different parameter files can be used either by using the load option within the program or by including them as a command line parameter e.g cfs2exel cath.def.

What's in the parameter file

  1. The file path for the CFS files, that the program reads.
  2. The file path for the text files that the program creates.
  3. The value separator to be used (space, comma, tab).
  4. The file extension to be used for the text files. The name given to the text files is the original CFS name plus that extension, so if the extension is set to .txt and the CFS file is called sample02.cfs then the text file will be called sample02.txt.
  5. Millivolt values. If this is set to 'ON' then the values in the text file will be expressed as millivolt values, otherwise they will be expressed as the values as read from the ADC inputs.
    The conversion used is millivolts = 1401 values / 6.54434.
  6. Channel number (range 0 to number of channels -1). The value entered here relates to the order in which the channels were sampled, not the numbers on the front of the 1401. So if your sampling parameters were set to sample channels 7,5,6 then enter 0 to get values as sampled on channel 7, 1 to get values for channel 5 etc.
  7. Two other options are available with this parameter:

    If it is set to -1 then the program will output data from all the channels
    If it is set to -2 then the program will prompt the user to input the desired channel numbers.

    To change an item, highlight it in the menu and press Enter.

To create a parameter file :

  1. Run the program and select manual operation from the first menu.
  2. Set up the desired paths in the manual operation menu.
  3. Select Load /Save parameters, change the available options to taste, press F5 and enter a name for the file when prompted. The program will warn you if you are about to overwrite an existing file.

To run the program

You can select Manual operation, but the best way to run the program is to create a parameter file, as described above, specify that file on the command line and then select Automatic operation. The program will then create text files containing the data from all the CFS files in the source path. If you have done enough experiments this should give you time to go for a cup of tea.

Cautionary Notes

  1. The program does not check the format of the CFS files, so if you have non-standard CFS files in your source path expect problems.
  2. The program does not check to see that the text files do not already exist, so if you have text files in your destination path, with the same name as the CFS file in you source path they will be overwritten without warning.
  3. You should check your data; compare values in the spreadsheet with the values in SIGAVG, compare averages using both techniques etc.
  4. No program is bug free so keep checking that the data giving you the wonderful results really is the same as the data collected from the subject.

09/97