The National and MPCData Files

National.exe is a self-extracting "archive" file available from our Downloads page. This means that the file contains a number of other files inside, which will be "unpacked" once the file is opened.

Once opened, the following files will be extracted:

• NATIONAL.TXT - the players' name database
• NATIONAL.CLB - the clubs' database
• CLUBS.TXT - the clubs' database identical to the above (used by some programs)
• ALTERNAT.TXT - alternate members' clubs database
• EVENTS.TXT - contains a 3-character code for all events
• PRE82.TXT - contains list of all red points issued prior to 1982

Note - the file HISTORY.TXT, contains all player awards and the events, is no longer provided. Contact the Masterpoint Centre if you still need this file each month.

The Nat4Win.exe program is no longer part of the packed monthly file, as it doesn't change from month to month. If needed, can be downloaded here as a program file (nat4win.exe) or as a zip file (nat4win.zip).

Information on the structure of these files can be found on our Download File Structure - National Files page.

To make sure that you have the latest files, check the date of the .TXT files. Alternatively, the first line of national.txt shows the effective date of the report.

The national.txt file is now also available for direct download as an alternative to downloading one of the compressed files. This will make it simpler for developers to automatically and seamlessly download the file from within their scoring program. The URL is downloads/national.txt.

The NAT4WIN program uses the above National download files which need to be in the same folder as the Nat4Win program. Nat4Win offers the following features:

• Look-up any player and their masterpoints (by name or by ABF Number)
• Select and extract a group of players
• View detail contained in any masterpoint file
• Merge two or more masterpoint files of the same type (i.e. colour) into one file
• Edit any masterpoint file
• Look-up any Masterpoint Secretary in Australia
• Look-up current number of members of clubs in Australia
• Enter Awards for home and alternate members (like CPAR forms)
• Enter Awards for none-listed players (like Sundy Awards forms)
• Create Player Awards Statements for one player or for all home members of a selected club

A full description of the functions and their uses is available in the NAT4WIN help file.

This self-extracting archive contains 3 files:

• MPData.csv - the players' name database
• ClubsData.csv - the clubs' database
• AltData.csv - the alternate membership database

These are in an alternative format to the TXT files above, and this will be more flexible when adding data or changing data structure in the future. They can be opened in Excel, and will be automatically formatted into columns, with column headings. Remember though, some earlier versions of Excel cannot open CSV files containing more than 32,768 rows. The Players.csv file contains over 80,000 rows.

Information on the structure of these files can be found on our Download File Structure - MPCData Files page.