Appendix B. How to register a new format as supported?

CompiCat program helps to upgrade the list of supported earthquake catalog formats, so that only a few lines of description are needed to access earthquake catalog data in a text format.
CompiCat program generates formats from the information listed the file named standardformat.list located in the subdirectory Install Directory/ecp/ref ( see Installation Notes )

To register a new format in the list of supported put an additional block of description at the end of the standardformat.list file. Each block should start and end with a line of minus characters, which embrace the description. Each line of description starts with one of the following locators – TITLE, URL, REF, TIME, LAT, LON, DEP, M1, M2, M3, M4, INTEN, SKIP, REM (note that some of the locators like URL, REF, REM could be not necessary). A locator may have parameters listed in the brackets. Usually, these indicate the starting position of the value followed by the string of its format. For example, TIME(1,YYYY/MM/DD HH:mm:SS.ss) indicates that the origin time is given in positions 1-22, DEP(34,DDDd) – the string of depth format is DDDd, SKIP(1,!GS) – each record that starts with GS will not be skipped, etc. The format specifications for each locator are as follows -

TITLE - used by CompiCat to display the format name;

TIME: Y(year), y(fraction of the year), M(month), D(day) or d(day of the year from January 1st), H(hours), m(minutes), S(seconds), s(fraction of the second);
LAT: D(integer degrees), d(fraction of a degree) or M(minutes, '), m(fraction of a minute) or s(seconds, "), - or N or S(sign);
LON: D(integer degrees), d(fraction of the degree) or M(minutes, '), m(fraction of the minute) or s(seconds, "), - or E or W(sign);
DEP: D(integer including sign if any), d(fraction);
M1, M2, M3, M4 - D(integer), d(fraction);
INT: one character;
SKIP: If the string starts with “!” character than each record that contains this string at the specified position will be read or skipped otherwise. Up to ten SKIP lines are allowed;

URL - the web site reference to receive catalogs, not used by the program;
REF - the place for the reference to format description, not used by the program;
REM - remarks, not used by the program.

The following formats are initially supported after installation of CompiCat program -

1. 20 byte - Standard Format - Binary - used in some MITPAN programs.
2. 41 byte - Standard Format - Text - used in some MITPAN programs.
3. swf.txt - Standard Wide Format - Text - text format of internal standard CompiCat binary format.
4. anss - Advanced National Seismic System - URL http://quake.geo.berkeley.edu/anss/catalog-search.html
5. anss 80-col - Advanced National Seismic System - URL http://quake.geo.berkeley.edu/anss/catalog-search.html
6. pde - NEIC Preliminary Determinations of Epicenters - URLs PDE-monthly - ftp://ghtftp.cr.usgs.gov/pub/pde;
   PDE-weekly and QED - ftp://ghtftp.cr.usgs.gov/pub/weekly
7. scec - Southern California Earthquake Data Center - URL http://www.data.scec.org/ftp/catalogs/SCEC_DC/
8. scsn - Southern California Seismographic Network - URL http://www.data.scec.org/ftp/catalogs/SCSN/
9. hypo71 - Summary hypo71 format year 2000 - URL http://www.data.scec.org/catalog_search/date_mag_loc.php
10. hds - NEIC Hypocenter Database System - URL VX-format - ftp://hazards.cr.usgs.gov/hds

For example:

TITLE pde - NEIC Preliminary Determinations of Epicenters
URL PDE-monthly - ftp://ghtftp.cr.usgs.gov/pub/pde
URL PDE-weekly and QED - ftp://ghtftp.cr.usgs.gov/pub/weekly
REF
TIME(5,YYYYMMDDHHmmSSss);
LAT(21,DDdddN);
LON(27,DDDdddE);
DEP(34,DDDd);
M1(48,Dd);
M2(52,Dd);
M3(57,Ddd);
M4(67,Ddd);
REM a - ascii character list(X -10,E - 11,T - 12)
INTEN(80,a,XET);
SKIP(1,!GS);
-----------------------------------------------------------

Examples of the format files

TIME(1,YYYY/MM/DD HH:mm:SS.ss);
LAT(24,-DD.dddd);
LON(33,-DDD.dddd);
DEP(43,DDD.dd);M3(51,D.dd);
SKIP(1,---);
SKIP(1, );

TIME(3,YYYYMMDDHHmmSSss);
LAT(21,DDdddN);
LON(27,DDDdddE);
DEP(34,DDDd);
M1(48,Dd);
M2(52,Dd);
M3(57,Ddd);
M4(67,Ddd);
INTEN(80);
SKIP(1,!GS);

TIME(1,YYYY/MM/DD HH:mm:SS.sss);
LAT(35,-DD.ddd);
LON(43,-DDD.ddd);
DEP(52,DDD.d);
M1(73,Ddd);

TIME(1,YYYY MM DD HH mm SS.ss);
LAT(25,-DD MM.mm);
LON(34,-DDD MM.mm);
DEP(54,DDD.dd);
M1(47,D.d);
SKIP(1,#);

   Name of the fields:

TIME - year, month, day, hr, minute, second I have not considered possibility to give time in years and fractions
LAT - latitude
LON - longitude
DEP - depth
M1 - first magnitude, or "MS"
M2 - first magnitude, or "MS"
M3 - first magnitude, or "MS"
M4 - first magnitude, or "MS"
INT - intensity (only one character can be read)
SKIP - to manage skipping non-data records

   Format specificators:

TIME: Y(year) y(fractions of the year) M(month) D(day) d(day from 1 January of the year) H(hours) m(minutes) S(seconds) s(fraction of second)
LAT: D(integer degrees) d(fraction of a degree) M(minutes,') m(fraction of a minute) s(seconds,") -, N or S(sign)
LON: D(integer degrees) d(fraction of a degree) M(minutes,') m(fraction of a minute) s(seconds,") -, E or W(sign)
DEP: D(integer part including sign if any) d(fraction part)
M1,M2,M3,M4 - D(integer part) d(fraction part)
INT: no specificators, only one character will be read
SKIP: multiple (upto 10) strings of SKIP are allowed. If first character after position and comma is ! - including rule will apply, otherwise excluding rule will apply; the following string upto ) will be compared with the input string starting from the indicated position

Compilation Catalog Program

ECP 1.3.0