Subject: Re: GBT use of FITS for single dish data

From: [email-masked] (Ray Norris)
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 95 09:38:12 EST

Hi harvey

Yes I agree with everything you say. In fact, our local data format,
RPFITS, which is a variant of FITS (and starts with SIMPLE = FALSE!),
does indeed set the number of groups to -1, and the reader then just
checks for invalid data to let it know the data has finished.  We also
have variable length arrays in it, but not in a binary table format.
But if FITS evolves to include the sorts of things you are suggesting,
then RPFITS would become redundant. I look forward to the day when we can
throw away RPFITS and use standard FITS for our local data format!

Cheers

ray

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From: [email-masked] (Bill Cotton)
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 95 07:47:00 EST

If I might comment on the real-time problem; the VLBA correlator
format has partially addressed this problem by defining the
appropriate response to a premature EOF.  All descriptive tables
(antenna positions, etc.) are given first and then the data table.  If
the data stream is terminated before reading the number of rows given
in the table header this is treated as an abnormal condition but does
not invalidate data already read.
-Bill