1.5. Recorder Files (*.rcd)

Recorder files (*.rcd by default) are text files that are used to define which results variables are to be recorded during a simulation. The recorder file is simply a set of comma-separated values with the following general syntax:

Record_ID, Object_ID, Signal_Name, Signal/State

• Record_ID is the identifier (or description) for the recorded variable and is the header for the variable when writing to an output file.
• Object_ID is the element identifier
• Signal_Name is the name of the signal or state variable to be recorded
• Signal/State is flag indicated whether the recorded variable is a SIGNAL or STATE variable

For example:

# Recorder set for SMIB test case
# Record ID, Object ID, Signal Name, Signal/State

GEN1-Vt,     GEN1,  Vt,   SIGNAL 
GEN1-Edpp,   GEN1,  Edpp, STATE

In this example, the signal Vt and state variable Edpp will be recorded from machine object GEN1.

Hashes (#) are comments, but the parser only recognises comments if the hash is at the start of the line, i.e.

# This is a valid comment

But in-line commenting does not work, i.e.

GEN1-Vt, GEN1, Vt, SIGNAL    # This comment will not work