RATS Program File (RPF)

RPF Extension

We use the extension .RPF for RATS Program Files. These are simple text files, so you can open them with any word processing program, but the .RPF extension allows us to associate the files with the RATS software.

Saving a Program

Select File—Save (or File—Save As... or the toolbar) and assign the file a name. For example, you might save this as MyProgram.rpf. You can also save the file when you close the window—you’ll be first asked if you want to save the changes, and if you answer “Yes”, you’ll be prompted for the file name.

Executing a Saved Program

Now, close all the open windows (using Windows—Close All). Because you are closing the input window (with your instructions), this will clear the RATS memory as well. Do File—Open... and re-open the file you just saved. Again, do the to get a separate output window. To re-execute the entire program, do Edit—Select All (or click on the button) and hit <Enter> (or click on the run icon: ).

RATS will execute all of the instructions in the file in order, generating text output in the output window, along with the various graphs and report windows. That’s how easy it is to reproduce a set of results! You can do the same thing with any of our example programs.

.PRG Extension

Historically, we used the extension .PRG for program files, but have phased that out because it was not unique to RATS, so any of a number of programs might actually end up being associated with it. It also caused problems with some e-mail filters since one possible use of .PRG is for executable batch files. However, since there are a large number of existing RATS program files which were given .PRG extensions, we still include that as a possible extension in the file dialog.