read_BIN2R: Import Risø BIN/BINX-files into R

In Luminescence: Comprehensive Luminescence Dating Data Analysis

Import Risø BIN/BINX-files into R

Description

Import a ⁠*.bin⁠ or a ⁠*.binx⁠ file produced by a Risø DA15 and DA20 TL/OSL reader into R.

Usage

read_BIN2R(
  file,
  show.raw.values = FALSE,
  position = NULL,
  n.records = NULL,
  zero_data.rm = TRUE,
  duplicated.rm = FALSE,
  fastForward = FALSE,
  show.record.number = FALSE,
  txtProgressBar = TRUE,
  forced.VersionNumber = NULL,
  ignore.RECTYPE = FALSE,
  pattern = NULL,
  verbose = TRUE,
  ...
)

Arguments

file	character or list (required): name of one or multiple BIN/BINX files (URLs are supported); it can be the path to a directory, in which case the function tries to detect and import all BIN/BINX files found recursively from the given directory.
show.raw.values	logical (with default): shows raw values from BIN-file for LTYPE, DTYPE and LIGHTSOURCE without translation in characters. Can be provided as list if file is a list.
position	numeric (optional): imports only the selected position. Note: the import performance will not benefit by any selection made here. Can be provided as list if file is a list.
n.records	numeric (optional): limits the number of imported records to the provided record id (e.g., n.records = 1:10 imports the first ten records, while n.records = 3 imports only record number 3. Can be used in combination with show.record.number for debugging purposes, e.g. corrupt BIN-files. Can be provided as list if file is a list.
zero_data.rm	logical (with default): remove erroneous data with no count values. As such data are usually not needed for the subsequent data analysis they will be removed by default. Can be provided as list if file is a list.
duplicated.rm	logical (with default): remove duplicated entries if TRUE. This may happen due to an erroneous produced BIN/BINX-file. This option compares only predecessor and successor. Can be provided as list if file is a list.
fastForward	logical (with default): if TRUE for a more efficient data processing only a list of RLum.Analysis objects is returned instead of a Risoe.BINfileData object. Can be provided as list if file is a list.
show.record.number	logical (with default): shows record number of the imported record, for debugging usage only. Can be provided as list if file is a list. Ignored if verbose = FALSE.
txtProgressBar	logical (with default): enable/disable the progress bar. Ignored if verbose = FALSE.
forced.VersionNumber	integer (optional): allows to cheat the version number check in the function by own values for cases where the BIN-file version is not supported. Can be provided as list if file is a list. Note: The usage is at own risk, only supported BIN-file versions have been tested.
ignore.RECTYPE	logical or numeric (with default): this argument allows to ignore values in the byte 'RECTYPE' (BIN-file version 08), in case there are not documented or faulty set. In this case the corrupted records are skipped. If the setting is numeric (e.g., ignore.RECTYPE = 128), records of those type are ignored for import.
pattern	character (optional): regular expression pattern passed to list.files to construct a list of files to read (used only when file specifies a path).
verbose	logical (with default): enable/disable output to the terminal.
...	further arguments that will be passed to the function Risoe.BINfileData2RLum.Analysis. Please note that any matching argument automatically sets fastForward = TRUE

Details

The binary data file is parsed byte by byte following the data structure published in the Appendices of the Analyst manual p. 42.

For the general BIN/BINX-file structure, the reader is referred to the Risø website: https://www.fysik.dtu.dk

Value

Returns an S4 Risoe.BINfileData object containing two slots:

METADATA	A data.frame containing all variables stored in the BIN-file.
DATA	A list containing a numeric vector of the measured data. The ID corresponds to the record ID in METADATA.

If fastForward = TRUE an RLum.Analysis object is returned (coerced by Risoe.BINfileData2RLum.Analysis).

Results are returned as a list when multiple files are processed or file is a list.

Function version

0.19

How to cite

Kreutzer, S., Fuchs, M.C., Colombo, M., 2026. read_BIN2R(): Import Risø BIN/BINX-files into R. Function version 0.19. In: Kreutzer, S., Burow, C., Dietze, M., Fuchs, M.C., Schmidt, C., Fischer, M., Friedrich, J., Mercier, N., Philippe, A., Riedesel, S., Autzen, M., Mittelstrass, D., Gray, H.J., Galharret, J., Colombo, M., Steinbuch, L., de Boer, A., Bluszcz, A., 2026. Luminescence: Comprehensive Luminescence Dating Data Analysis. R package version 1.3.1. https://r-lum.github.io/Luminescence/

Note

The function works for BIN/BINX-format versions 03, 04, 05, 06, 07 and 08. The version number depends on the used Sequence Editor.

Author(s)

Sebastian Kreutzer, F2.1 Geophysical Parametrisation/Regionalisation, LIAG - Institute for Applied Geophysics (Germany)
Margret C. Fuchs, HZDR Freiberg, (Germany)
Marco Colombo, Institute of Geography, Heidelberg University (Germany)
based on information provided by Torben Lapp and Karsten Bracht Nielsen (Risø DTU, Denmark) , RLum Developer Team

References

DTU Nutech, 2016. The Sequence Editor, Users Manual, February, 2016. https://www.fysik.dtu.dk

See Also

write_R2BIN, Risoe.BINfileData, base::readBin, merge_Risoe.BINfileData, RLum.Analysis utils::txtProgressBar, list.files

Examples

file <- system.file("extdata/BINfile_V8.binx", package = "Luminescence")
temp <- read_BIN2R(file)
temp

Luminescence documentation built on Sept. 18, 2026, 9:07 a.m.