title: When logging integer data from bash to a file, what kind of file should be used?
body: <p>I have a Cronjob on my MacOS that stores several user data to files for plotting these. The date is for example CPU usage, RAM, temperature sensors, brightness, battery, in- and outbytes, fanspeed, free disk space and so on.</p>
  
  <p>The data is meant for plotting the results over a long timespan, up to a hole year. The bash-file stores new data every two seconds as long my MacBook is aktive (display awake).</p>
  
  <p>This is an example of the log files:     </p>
  
  <pre><code>4315681 46 0
  4315683 42 0
  4315685 40 0
  4315687 43 0
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So, all Characters stored in the files are integers, no floating numbers and no other chars except numbers.</p>
  
  <p>Is it advisable to store these lines in a normal .txt file? Or should I think of other solutions like .xml or .dat extensions. Can I store these numbers in a binary file and would it make sense? </p>
  
  <p>The data will be plotted with Gnuplot. An x-axis for the ID (first column, time format) and the y-axis will be the data from the second column from 0-100.</p>
  
  <p>These questions never affected me, so I haven't any idea about these things, but I wanted to know a bit more about it. </p>
  
  <p>Thanks for your help!</p>