Exporting a run

The portable copies and the generated PDF of a run: what each verb needs, how the files are named, and exactly what a CSV, an XLSX, a GLAB and a PDF contain.

The strip above the open run carries the portable copies first, then the generated documents (The run record). The four verbs below take the Export/import histories permission, and all four are reads of the run file: they stay available while the runtime is stopped and while a unit records, and none of them writes anything into the run.

The strip carries a fifth verb, New label, which is neither an export nor a read: it emits a label into the run and is recorded there as evidence of it, so it takes Run procedures instead of the export permission and is described with the documents it belongs to (Labels and reports).

A mid-run CSV or XLSX export is a consistent partial copy: the frozen header is written when the run starts, so the export carries the full column set and the rows recorded so far, read through the live recording rather than a second connection to the file. Every date and time in an export follows the format configured in Settings, and each file declares the reference its stamps are read in: "UTC" or "UTC±hh:mm", the station's offset at export time.

File names

CSV, XLSX, GLAB and PDF share one base name per run: the start instant in the station's date and time format with the separators made file-safe, then the model, the unit and the procedure names ("02-09-2026 14-05-30 - Climatic chamber - Unit 1 - Soak test"), each part shortened to 48 characters and stripped of characters Windows refuses. The base is reserved durably, so repeated exports of one run keep the same name across restarts, and only a different run that would land on the same name receives a short suffix from its identity. A report emitted by an action adds the group's name after the base; a PDF generated here keeps the plain base. Every file is completed under a temporary name and published only when complete, so a cancelled export never leaves a partial file with the product extension.

CSV

One Timestamp column, headed "Timestamp (UTC-03:00)" with the time reference, then, per recorded channel in the frozen column order, a value column headed by the channel name with its engineering unit in brackets ("Temperature [°C]") and a quality column beside it ("Temperature [°C] Quality") reading Good or Unavailable. The value column keeps whatever the datalog stored (blank when nothing was), booleans read true/false, a date-typed channel reads in the station's format, and a value containing the separator, a quote or a line break is quoted. A text cell beginning with =, +, - or @ is prefixed with an apostrophe so a spreadsheet reads it as text and not as a formula: the channel names in the header and a string channel's readings, which come from the equipment. Numbers are never prefixed, so a negative reading stays a number.

The file follows the station's decimal-separator preference: with point decimals the list separator is ,; with comma decimals it is ;, so the file opens cleanly in a spreadsheet of that locale. Numbers are written without a thousands separator, at the datalog's full stored precision. The text is UTF-8.

XLSX

The workbook opens with a Run sheet, two columns headed Field and Value:

A second header, Metadata and Value, follows with one row per metadata field recorded at Start, in prompt order. One or more Datalog sheets follow, in the same column order as the CSV, with the header row frozen, an autofilter on every sheet and no grid lines. A datalog longer than Excel's 1,048,576-row sheet limit splits automatically into Datalog 2, Datalog 3, and so on, each with its own header.

Values are written as typed cells: integers and finite decimals as native numbers at the datalog's full stored precision, booleans as native TRUE/FALSE. Excel itself works with at most 15 significant digits, so digits beyond that are not shown there, though the file carries them. A non-finite reading, a date-typed channel and the timestamps are text; a reading whose quality is Unavailable leaves its value cell empty, with the quality column saying so. A run that would need more than Excel's 16,384 columns, or a text cell over its 32,767-character limit, is refused with the reason instead of producing a truncated workbook.

GLAB

The .glab file is a consistent, page-level copy of the run's own SQLite file, taken online: no archive wrapper, no manifest, no derived documents and no published PDF. It carries everything the run file carries: the frozen snapshot, the rows, the metadata, the recipe writes, the criteria, the occurrences, the comments, the annotations, the productivity records, the label artifacts with their frozen bytes and the report registrations with any copy they kept. It uses the same base name as the other exports and is only published once completely written. Another station takes it back in through Importing runs.

PDF

Generate PDF composes the report with the layout the picker beside it selects. "(procedure's report)" is the layout named by the procedure's first completion report command in emission order today (its first start command when it emits none at Completion); a procedure that is gone or emits no report, and a layout that was deleted, fall back to the all-sections default, so a regeneration outlives the configuration. Any other layout of the library can be chosen instead, because the run file is self-sufficient. The PDF is published in the reports folder under the run's plain base name, replacing the previous hand render, and registers nothing on the run.

On the station's own window the finished PDF opens in the system's PDF viewer, falling back to a browser download when that fails ("Could not open the report. Downloading it instead."); in a browser, local or remote, it opens in a new tab. What the pages contain is Report layouts. The report already registered for a run is reissued instead from Labels and reports, which never composes it again.