Using SID

The results of the experiments in Schools Online Science are stored in the 'SID' format. You should be able to Open these files in your data logging program. Look for a reference to SID in the 'File / Open' or the 'File / Import SID' command. Then search for the folder on your computer where the Internet program saves things.

There still plenty of hope, even if you can't get your data logging software to do this. Instead open a spreadsheet program, go to the 'File / Open' command and change the 'Files of Type' box to read All Files (*.*). Then search for the folder where the Internet program saves things. You should find that you obtain a fairly big table of data with readings in columns. You can then use the data to draw a scattergraph or further calculations.

You can also load a SID file into your word processor program. If you then highlight the data you can turn it into a table of text. One of the difficulties with using anything other than a data logging program to open a SID file is that data logging involves lots of readings. In turn that means that your table will be a long one. One or two data logging programs recognise this point and let you save a subset of your results, for example, they'll let you save say, one in five readings.

Occasionally, your spreadsheet program will fail to recognise that the file is 'comma separated text' (see below). In this case, look for a command in the 'File / Open' dialogue box that tells the program that the file is comma separated text.

Who or What is SID?

Different computer programs save your work in different formats. So one program can read its own format, but not any other. A few years ago the people who wrote data logging software got together to decide on a format that everybody's software could understand. Amazingly they made a decision, and this format they called SID.

The experiment results kept here on Schools Online Science were obtained using various data logging programs. You should be able to get these results into whatever data logging program you use. That's provided that the people who wrote your program know about SID. Most fortunately do.

Formats

Different formats are a bit like having the same book in different languages, if you understand all those languages there's no problem reading them. The trouble is very few computer programs can read these different languages or formats.

Computer boffins will be able to set up the 'File Type' or 'File Association' on the computer so that if you double click on a SID file, it will open the appropriate spreadsheet program to read it.

About the SID format (technical)

The SID format is just another form of the 'comma separated value' format. Sensor readings are placed on a single line and if several sensors were used at the same time their readings sit next to each other separated by commas. Here's a portion of a SID file just to make that clearer.

Note that the first part of the file is called the header. Most data logging programs try to understand this and translate it into axis scales:

%%identifier,SID
%%datasize,155,4
%%title,Weather 27 April
%%fieldname,1,Time
%%fieldunits,1,seconds
%%fieldname,2,Light
%%fieldunits,2,%
%%maxmin,2,100.0,0.0
%%fieldname,3,Temperature
%%fieldunits,3,celsius
%%maxmin,3,50.0,0.0
%%fieldname,4,Temperature
%%fieldunits,4,celsius
%%maxmin,4,50.0,0.0
%%interval,512
0,44.4,18.1,11.2
512,0.9,17.7,8.2
1024,0.8,17.4,8.4
1536,0.9,17.2,8.5
2048,0.8,17.0,8.5
2560,0.7,16.8,8.5
Then more readings...

This page was contributed to Schools Online for your use in school by Roger Frost, IT in Science.