I have been saving my data to text-based files,of course, keeping track of how the data are formatted, thru flags. And I usually create extra fields for future expansion. It is tedious, but the file can be read by any spread sheet and/or text editing software. I use datalog files to handle data temporarily, but not for storage. I have seen LabView converting datalog files to new format, and I did not like that. If I am the end user, I will live with it, but customers usually will not like it and wonder what's happening.
This is not the ultimate good solution, but in my case it saves me the headache if my binary files format becomes outdated or for some reason their format (the software) is lost.
