[GIS] What format is this data in

file formats

I ran into a file today that is in a format I'm unfamiliar with, and I'm hoping that someone can identify it.

The file extension is CTZ, but the only file type I found on Google with that extension was the "Custody Toolbox Zip" file extension (which is software unrelated to GIS).

Here are a couple of lines from the file (all of the lines are in this format). The whitespace is all space characters, not tabs.

00000 000       0000CANADA                          +1285448500+4308048100+0001891000+0728293500+7050177200+0002341100+0557155000+7257869800+0001302700
10000 000       0000NEWFOUNDLAND - TERRE-NEUVE      +0024419500+0340743500+0001395400+0014446000+0243530500+0001685800+0009974000+0097218800+0000974700
10000 000       6999NFLD./T.-N. CT - SR S/TOTAL     +0007789500+0138134200+0001773300+0004317000+0093599600+0002168200+0003472500+0044536500+0001282500

… 

59935A9350005.002412VICTORIA                        +0000188000+0003855300+0002050700+0000096000+0002484500+0002588000+0000092000+0001372500+0001491900
59935A9350006.002413VICTORIA                        +0000109500+0002311900+0002111300+0000056000+0001599600+0002856400+0000053500+0000709900+0001326900

Thanks!

Update: After some more Googling, I found this mailing list post of a person with very similar data, but I couldn't garner the format from that conversation.

Update 2: The data was acquired via the Statistics Canada Data Liberation Initiative. It sounds like it came from an FTP site that requires authentication, so I can't provide access to the files.

Best Answer

This appears to be a fixed-width text file. The format is easy to read into Excel (or other spreadsheet), where it can be saved as a CSV or other format that is generally more GIS-friendly. You may have to change the extension from .CTZ to .TXT, or tell the spreadsheet to list "all files" when opening it. Note that some GIS software, e.g. TNTmips, can easily import fixed-width text files.

However, without a header row or metadata that specify what the columns represent, it is very difficult to determine what the data is.

--- EDIT BELOW ---

Based on the link you added in your edit, the data may be both fixed width AND delimited by a plus (+), which will make it difficult to save then import into GIS software without further edits to the table. The simplest way may be to first open the file in a plain text editor (e.g. Notepad++), search-and-replace each plus with a few spaces, save, and then open the file in a spreadsheet as a fixed width text file.

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