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This document describes the format used to record names and armory in the SCA Armorial Database. The database is actually a flat text file. The text is mostly ASCII, with a few Latin-1 encodings. (Latin-1 is an extension of ASCII and is an international standard. Unfortunately, its 8-bit codes are NOT compatible with the "437" code page normally active on PCs running MS-DOS in the United States.)
The file consists of a copyright notice followed by records.
The copyright notice begins with a line that reads "NOTICE:" and ends with a line that reads "END OF NOTICE." The records begin immediately after the end-of-notice.
Each record occupies a single line in the file, and each line contains one record. A record has at least five fields, separated by stiles ('|'). The five required fields are: name, source, type, text, and notes, in that order.
There is no official limit on the length of a name.
Examples:
In this case, the LoAR date indicates the date of the Laurel action that created the record. For combined records (record types 'B' 'BD' and 'D') this is not necessarily the date the name was registered, nor is it necessarily the date the armory was registered.
In this case, the item has been released, transfered, redesignated, corrected, reblazoned, or is otherwise obsolete. The date is the date of the obsoleting action.
In this case, the item is obsolete. The second date is the obsoleting action, and the first date is the last action before the obsoleting action.
The kingdom ID letters correspond closely to codes used by the S.C.A. Registry:
There is no official limit on the length of the text field.
There is no official limit on the number of notes or their length.
For name items, there are always exactly four stiles (and thus five fields).
For armory items (types 'B' 'D' 'a' 'b' 'd' 'g' 's' 'BD' and 'D?') additional fields are used to describe the headings under which the armory is indexed in the SCA Ordinary. Obsolete armory is not indexed, and there is no official limit on the number of headings.
