TuneTracker™ QuickTip

Understanding, Using Database-Style Output Logs (Part One)

If you have AutoCast 4.0 or newer, your output logs (the text files that report what played on the air) provide a great deal more information. It is stored in what is called "comma-delimited" format, which simply means each line contains several fields of information, separated by commas.

Depending on how you have things set-up in System Preferences, the top line of each output log will look something like this:

Start Time,Event Type,Filename,Artist,Title,Album,Duration,Composer

The line above is the "header line" and tells you how the information in all the other lines is formatted. Based on the line above, a typical song entry might look like:

14:21:17,audio file,Robin.mp3,Bill Smith,Robin Awakes,Bird Music,03:13,Bill Smith

Your output log is viewable in the scrolling textbox in AutoCast by hitting the O (not zero) key on your keyboard. You can enlarge your view by hitting Enter, and return to normal size by hitting Enter again.

Next week, we'll see how this information can be loaded into a spreadsheet and examined.

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