Past Performances Exported File Format

PTD Comma-Delimited File Standard (revision 1.20)

Aug 1, 2024

Programmers please read the following points carefully:

1. When string fields contain quotation marks within them, the embedded quotation mark characters (symbol ") will be changed to the percent character (symbol %) when exported by the Post Time Daily. This is due to the fact that some languages do not deal with embedded quotes properly.
2. When strings contain no information they may be space filled or they may appear in the comma delimited files as two quotes with nothing in between. Our preference is that at some future time if the information for a string field is not available it will contain nothing between the quotes. But we have had many reports from Visual Basic programmers that truly empty strings (NULL) are in some way a problem. PLEASE MAKE SURE that your program can handle space filled strings and empty (NULL) strings. Also don't assume that if a field is defined as string(22) that it will be filled with 22 spaces if empty. It might not. If your programming tool has some kind of trim function we would recommend that you trim all strings and then check their length to determine if they have information or not. That seems safe to us but other methods can work as well.
3. No assumptions should be made about the order of the entrants in the comma delimited files. The comma delimited files may be in post position order, saddle cloth order, or technically in any other order. The horses in the horse file currently export in the same order as the horses listed in the entrant file but while we DON'T expect that to change that is not guaranteed either.
4. We will be setting up a system to ensure that those of you who depend on comma delimted files will be emailed WELL in advance of any proposed changes and that you will have a chance to give us input into these changes.
5. Do not assume that there will be only up to ten pacelines per horse. We are currently putting out 10 pacelines, but could add more at a later date. Field 7 of the ENT file (numberOfPacelines) is the only valid way to determine how many pacelines are present for a horse. You can always choose to ignore those you don't want to use.
6. Regarding Y2K compliance. There is NOTHING about year two thousand compliance (contrary to popular opinion) that REQUIRES four character date codes. However software which does NOT use two character date codes intelligently (e.g. where the year can't be determined based on some semantic context) will have problems. We will notify you well prior to expanding the year code to four digits so that you have time to update your software. If you can plan for this now and allow for the possibility that the date fields will changed to MM/DD/YYYY in the future that would certainly be desireable. You can determine whether you are dealing with an old or new date by checking the length of the date field. New date fields will be 10 characters long. Old date fields will be 8 characters long.
7. Programmers – DO NOT HARDCODE the Version string in the sense that you are looking for ONE particular VALUE. We will update this with every major revision of this document. So if you need to check for changes incorporated into a particular version please convert field 1 of the RAC file (Version String) to a number and check by making sure that the version is 1.5 OR GREATER. Do NOT code for = to version 1.5 as your code will SURELY break when we update this field.

Sample comma delimited files are available on our website via the home page at https://www.posttimedaily.com.

The PTD Comma-Delimited File Standard defines a set of five comma delimited files which together comprise a card of racing at any racetrack.

Our current product, the Post Time Daily will allow exporting our current PTD data file to this PTD Comma Delimited File Standard.

The file naming conventions for the Export files are as follows where E is a constant, TTT is the track code (two or three characters), MM is the month, DD is the date, and YY is the two digit decimal year code. If the track code is two characters, for file naming purposes only, we will use an underscore for the third character.

ETTTMMDD.RYY (for race records) ETTTMMDD.CYY (for class string info for race) ETTTMMDD.EYY (for entry records – horse specific) ETTTMMDD.WYY (for workout records) ETTTMMDD.HYY (for horse records – paceline level)

While the file structures are not totally normalized (if you don't understand this term don't worry), we have tried to make them somewhat relational. The .CLS file which contains the conditions of the race from the racing form can be up to 4100 bytes in length. That is the class information that appears at the top of the race as the race conditions. Because of that, while it logically belongs in the .RAC file, we have extracted it into a separate file so that those of you who cannot handle a string file of this length can ignore it. AT THE END OF THIS CLASS STRING THERE WILL BE A CARRIAGE RETURN CHARACTER (hex 0x0D) followed by the bet types separated by additional CARRIAGE RETURNS if they appear on multiple lines.

The following conventions are followed in this comma-delimited file structure. All string fields are enclosed in double quotation marks. String fields which contain embedded quote characters (symbol ") will have these embedded quote characters changed to the percent character (symbol %). All numeric fields are not enclosed in quotes. Fields defined as date fields are expressed as strings of the form MM/DD/YY and enclosed in quotes just like any other string. Some combination of fields in each record will always constitute a unique key. And there is a well defined way to navigate all 1 to many relationships in these files.

Developers – THE NEXT NOTES ARE VERY IMPORTANT

The following is a list of fields which are NOT currently used but might be in the future.

RAC FILE none

CLS FILE none

ENT FILE Not currently used field 76, 77, 79

WOR FILE Currently the product allows for up to 12 workouts in the Post Time Daily. Changes to this will require a product upgrade, but we might do this in the future. Don't make ANY assumptions about how many work outs we will provide.

HOR FILE not currently used field 21 (we hope to have this back shortly) not currently used field 60, 61-64 not currently used field 80, 81 (we hope to have these back shortly)

NOTE: VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT FRACTIONAL TIMES IN THE HOR FILE We have set up these times in such a way that traditional pace handicappers who need the 2f and 4f time in sprints, and the 4f and 6f time in routes will always find them in the firstCallTime (field 27) and the secondCallTime (field 28).

If a time appears with a ZERO value that means it was not available or is not recorded at a particular distance.

Sprints

(Obviously sprints 4f and shorter cannot have a 4f internal time!) (Many of these shorter sprints will also not have an additionalFractionalTime) (At some tracks these short sprints will have a 2f time but no 4f time) (Example DeD at 4-1/2f seems to report 2f time and final time in some races and 2f time and 4f time in others)

depending on the track where they are run) firstCallTime 2f time secondCallTime 4f time finalTime as expected

additionalFractionalTime (field 30) is the stretch call time in sprints

Sprints between 5-1/2 and 6f additionalFractionalTime (field 30) is 5/8 time

Sprints between 6-1/2 and 7-1/2f additionalFractionalTime (field 30) is 6f time

Routes

firstCallTime 4f time secondCallTime 6f time finalTime as expected

Routes between 8f and 8-1/2f (inclusive) additionalFractionalTime (field 30) is 2f time

Routes above 8-1/2f additionalFractionalTime (field 30) is 8f time

File 1: the .Rxx file

There will be one race record for each race which is running at a track.

File 2: the .Cxx file

There will be one .CLS record for each race which is running at a track. The first three fields (fields 1-3) provide a unique key for this record. It can be used to relate the .RAC and .CLS files. There is a one-to-one relationship between them. As explained above this is a separate record only for convenience of users who cannot handle a string field that is potentially 4100 bytes in size.

File 3: the .Exx file

There will be many .ENT records for each race which is running at a track. Generally for each .RAC record there will be many .ENT records although there could be zero or 1 as well. The first three fields date, track, and racenumber can be used to find all the .ENT records for each .RAC record. There is a 1 to many relationship between .RAC and .ENT. The first four fields (fields 1-4) provide a unique key for this record. It can be used to relate the .ENT and .HOR files. There is a one-to-many relationship between the .ENT file and the .HOR file.

Note: Past performances that are downloaded after the saddle cloth numbers are assigned will have these fields already filled in without downloading the additional free saddle cloth file. If pps were downloaded prior to these assignments then the free saddle cloth file will still be needed to fill in these fields.

File 4: the .Wxx file

There will be many .WOR records for each race which is running at a track. The first five fields (fields 1-5) provide a unique key for this record. The first four fields are used to relate the .ENT and .WOR files. There is a one-to-many relationship between them. Generally for each .ENT record there can be many .WOR records although there could be zero or 1 as well. While we currently only have up to 4 workouts for each horse, we expect to ship many more WOR records in the future. Don't assume a maximum number. At least up to twelve will be provided in a future update.

File 5: the .Hxx file

There will be many .HOR records for each race which is running at a track. The first five fields (fields 1-5) provide a unique key for this record. The first four fields are used to relate the .ENT and .HOR files. There is a one-to-many relationship between them. Generally for each .ENT record there will be many .HOR records although there could be zero or 1 as well.

Note: If the Position Call was not available it will have a value of zero.

All beaten lengths in fields 37-40 are in decimal. A 'hd' is allowed .15, a neck 0.20 and a nose 0.10. So if the past performances says 3-1/4 we have 3.25. If the PPs says 1hd we have 0.15.

Also NOTE that if a horse is ON THE LEAD at a particular call position then the beaten lengths field will actually be the margin of lead at that position.

IMPORTANT – If the beaten lengths field is ZERO this indicates that the information was unavailable. No horse not on the lead can ever have a valid beaten lenght of zero. And no horse on the lead can ever have a leading margin of ZERO. Thus ZERO denotes a missing value.

IF a horse was EASED it will generally have a POSITION CALL OF ZERO and BEATEN LENGTHS of 99.75. Checking for 99 or more in the beaten lengths should be sufficient!

HORSE that had NO INFO at a point of call (for Example foreign horse internals) will have POSITION CALLS of ZERO and BEATEN LENGTHS OF ZERO.

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