Sequence File Format

The sequence file format is used for representing a sequence of values. The files are stored in ascii and need to be in the format:

sequence<type>
<v0>
<v1>
...
<v_(n-1)>

Each item after the sequence<type> declaration represents one element of the sequence and <type> specifies the type of each elements. The items are delimited by any consecutive sequence of delimiter characters: tab, space, line feed (ascii 0x0A), and carriage return (ascii 0x0D). The <type> can be one of the following:

• Int: integers in decimal notation. A minus sign (-) is used to indicate a negative integer.
• Double: double precision floating point numbers in decimal or exponential notation.
• String: character strings (can contain any sequence of non-delimiter character). There is no limit on the length of the strings.
• <type1><type2>Pair: where <type1> and <type2> are any of the types above. This represents a pair of values of the given types separated by a delimiter character. For example:

  sequenceStringIntPair
this 22
is 444
a 12345
sequence 11
of -22 nine
14
string 1

  integer 16
pairs 0

The missing and extra carriage returns are meant to illustrate that there is no distinction between the delimiting characters.

Files can start and end with delimiters, which are ignored.