Summary File 1 Characteristics

Advantage

Disadvantage

Hierarchical structure

Efficient in terms of storage

Requires good programming skills to use effectively

Comma delimited data

Smaller files than fixed format

Accommodates spreadsheet users

With compression, size is not very relevant

Not as efficient to read with a statistical package

Multiple files

Individual files remain small

Advantageous for ftp

Requires merging skills

Multiple read/input statements