| More docs on the ARB website. See also index of helppages. Last update on 24. Jun 2017 .

Main topics:

- ARB: a Short Introduction
- Glossary
- Export Selected Species and Sequences

Related topics:

- Search and Replace Tool (SRT)

# Export File Formats

- OCCURRENCE
- DESCRIPTION
- NOTES
- EXAMPLES
- WARNINGS
- BUGS

## OCCURRENCE

### ARB_NT/File/Export Foreign Format

## DESCRIPTION

### The export format description file (*.eft) describes the format. It contains different sections:

### SECTIONS

    SUFFIX          suffix          ;The suggested file suffix
    #               headerinfo      ;Header information
    BEGIN ...                       ;the main section

The main section is part of a 'SRT' (see ´Search and Replace Tool (SRT)´) conversion (in fact the main section S is replaced by "*=S" and the SRT is started on an empty string). That means:

1. All simple 'text' is written to the output file.
2. All references '*([ref][:|#modifier])' are replaced by the [modified] value of the reference
3. All lines containing the word '$$DELETE_LINE$$' are deleted.
4. Lines ending with a \ are joined with the next line.

### SPECIAL SECTIONS

PRE_FORMAT xxx.eft
SYSTEM "command"
First a output is created using xxx.eft. Then command is used to convert the result into the wanted result.
In command use
$< as input-filename
$> as output-filename
INTERNAL type
used for formats hardcoded in ARB_NT.
Supported types:
'xml_write' Writes all none-hidden fields to XML.

## NOTES

### The best ways to design new formats are:

1. Copy an existing format and modify it step by step.
2. Design a simple format and modify it step by step.

## EXAMPLES

### Edit the files in '$ARBHOME/lib/export'

## WARNINGS

### Don't change an '*.eft' file, if you don't understand how it works. Be careful when using ':' or '"' symbols. Escape them if those symbols don't have a meaning.

## BUGS

### No bugs known