[Difx-users] root_id problem with Difx2mark4

[Jamie McCallum]

Hello everyone,	
	When converting a recently correlated experiment into mark4 output, 
Jakob Gruber and I encountered a problem with the the root ID assigned 
to the files. This was given as "{abdgh", after finally running out of 
alphabetical characters. Unfortunately, the bracket character causes 
problems for the file system and fourfit can't handle these files.
	Renaming the files by substituting "a" for "{" did not resolve the 
issue, as the root ID is cross-referenced within the data structure.
	To work around the issue, we've recompiled difx2mark4 after editing the 
root_id.c program to use 1999 as the reference epoch, rather than 1979. 
This has reset the root_id codes to ~mmaaaa and will buy us ~18 years 
before we run into the same problem again. The output data can be parsed 
by fourfit without any apparent issues.
	Does anybody know if this offset root_id code will cause problems down 
the line, or of any better solution to the issue?
Best regards,
Jamie McCallum and Jakob Gruber