4 ms·

I like the nicely formated txt file, but why is it in a txt file? Could use a nice warez .nfo header... wonder if there's an official gov ASCII file header.

• chaps 4y ago
  I'd be willing to bet it's because some trader's tooling written 20 years ago broke after a format change so they successfully raised hell to make sure it would stay the same format forever. Probably perl.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • cagenut 4y ago
    probably long pre-dates perl, like RPG or CICS
    • mulmen 4y ago
      According to the archive [1] this is a similar format to the (printed? faxed?) reports as far back as 1964. The annual version [2] goes back to 1941 and uses a similar format. Talk about backwards compatibility! [1]: https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/tm70mv177?locale=en&page=71#release-items https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/tm70mv... [2]: https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/k3569432s?locale=en&page=9#release-items https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/k35694...
  • h2odragon 4y ago
    I wrote parsers for some of this data pre-1990 in GWBASIC. Replacing COBOL code that did the same.
• mulmen 4y ago
  It's available in Text, PDF, CSV, and JSON at https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/ https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/.