[Discuss-gnuradio] Raw sample storage format

[David Carr]

As it stands right now, a raw sample file is just that, raw values in a 
file.  It seems that it might be wise to include some sort of header in 
the file that describes its contents just a little.  An idea for a few 
fields is below.  To ease implmentation the header could be a fixed 
length and if the program was uninterested in the header info it could 
just seek to the beginning of the data.

example header:  [data could be stored in text or binary format - binary 
shown]
uint16                          [magic key to descriminate headerless 
files from files with headers - for backwards compatibility]
char[255]                    name/description
sizeof(struct timeval)   date
char[255]                    comments
uint32                         sample_rate
uint8                           bits_per_sample
double                         if_freq
...

I think that the implementation would be rather trivial to do (if I 
could do it, it must be).  Whether to store the data in text or binary 
format is an interesting question.  If the data is in text format its 
human readable but the binary format is more compact and easier for the 
code to deal with.

Lets hear some thoughts,
-David Carr