• Structure of Blue Files:
  • There are three main parts to a Blue File:

    Main Header

    The Main Header is divided into two sections:

    Fixed	Basic information about the file (start values, deltas, units).
    	Fields common to all Blue files.
    	Three keywords (called main header keywords).
    Adjunct	Details about the file layout (varies based on file type).
    	May include system modeling information.

    Data

    The binary data of the file.

    Extended Header

    Stores keywords (auxiliary information about the file).

• Indexing into a Blue Files:
  • It is important to note that different Midas frameworks use different indexing systems when accessing elements of a file.

    X-Midas	Uses one-based indexing which matches VMS and Fortran standards.
    NeXtMidas	Uses zero-based indexing which matches Unix and Java/C/C++ standards.

X-Midas Users Take Note:
Prior to the release of the Blue file specification some versions of Martes created Blue files with a non-standard extended header. X-Midas has been modified to allow most of the non-standard files to be read correctly.