User's Manual - Cornell Lab of Ornithology - Cornell University

Chapter 10File FormatsAbout this chapterCanary enables you to save and retrieve data in a variety of formats, whichmakes it easy to transfer information between Canary and other applicationprograms, including word processors, spreadsheets and statistics programs,and other programs that work with sound data.This chapter begins by making a distinction between the types of data storedin files and the format in which the data are stored. Subsequent sectionsdiscuss how to open files saved by Canary or other programs, and how tosave files in the various formats. The last section includes a discussion offactors that might influence the choice of format for saving files.BackgroundData typesand file formatsCanary can open and save files containing six different types of data. The datatype determines whether Canary interprets the information in a file asrepresenting a sound (waveform), a spectrogram, a spectrum, a correlationfunction, a correlation array, or a data log.Each file is characterized by its file format. The file format determines how dataare organized or structured within the file, irrespective of what the datarepresent (the data type). Canary can read and write six different file formats,but not all of them can be used for every data type. Table 10.1 shows whichformats are available for each type of data. The Canary file format allowssound, spectrogram, and spectrum data to be saved together in a single file, asdiscussed later in this chapter. All of the other formats require that each filecontain only one type of data.Canary 1.2 User’s Manual 137