Skip to main content
Service phase: Beta

This service is still in development. Give us your feedback or view this page on the current PRONOM service.

Format

Flow Cytometry Standard File

Summary

Name
Flow Cytometry Standard File
Version
1.0-3.1
Identifiers
  • MIME: application/vnd.isac.fcs
  • PUID: fmt/1737
Format type
Dataset
Description
Flow Cytometry Standard (FCS) is a format originating from data file standard for reading and writing of data from flow cytometry experiments written by International Society for Advancement of Cytometry (ISAC). FCS format describes a file that is a combination of textual data followed by binary data. The first version of the format was adopted as FCS 1.0 in 1984, and then was modified in 1990 as FCS 2.0 and again in 1997 as FCS 3.0, with the latest version of the standard introduced in 2010 as version 3.1. Please see the links attached with this entry to find file specification.
Note
https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:6a9bb787-839c-3d29-9800-4191c3209260#pageNum=1 https://isac-net.org/page/Data-Standards https://web.archive.org/web/20220128002659/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_Cytometry_Standard
File extensions
fcs
Source
UMC Utrecht / University Medical Center Utrecht
Developed by
ISAC / International Society for Advancement of Cytometry
Supported by
ISAC / International Society for Advancement of Cytometry

Internal signatures

Flow Cytometry Standard File

Note
BOF; Offset: 0; Magic Bytes: 'FCS' followed by a version number then followed by space characters, followed by at least three pairs of ASCII-encoded integers indicating the byte offsets for the start and end (=last byte of) of the primary TEXT segment, the DATA segment, and the ANALYSIS segment

Byte sequences

Min Frag Length
Absolute from BOF
Offset
0
Max offset
0
Byte Sequence
464353{3}20
Endianness
None

Changelog

  • Added in V108

    Release date
    5 September 2022

    Flow Cytometry Standard File: Signature researched and samples provided by University Medical Center Utrecht.

    Flow Cytometry Standard File: Full entry added. Submitted by University Medical Center Utrecht.