From fitsbits-request Wed Nov 2 09:01:18 1994 X-VM-Message-Order: (1 2 3 4 6 7 5 8 9 10 14 15 11 12 16 17 13 18 19 21 22 24 23 20) X-VM-Summary-Format: "%n %*%a %-17.17F %-3.3m %2d %4l/%-5c %I\"%s\"\n" X-VM-Labels: nil X-VM-VHeader: ("Resent-" "From:" "Sender:" "To:" "Apparently-To:" "Cc:" "Subject:" "Date:") nil X-VM-Bookmark: 24 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["543" "" " 2" "November" "1994" "09:45:43" "-0400" "David J. Lane" "dlane at hercules.stmarys.ca" "<398567$ri6 at Owl.nstn.ca>" "14" "New SBIG ST-6 file to FITS Converter available" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994110213:45:43" "New SBIG ST-6 file to FITS Converter available" (number " " mark " David J. Lane Nov 2 14/543 " thread-indent "\"New SBIG ST-6 file to FITS Converter available\"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA04318; Wed, 2 Nov 94 09:01:18 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <398567$ri6 at Owl.nstn.ca> Organization: Astronomy & Physics, SMU Path: saips.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!caen!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!uunet!newsflash.concordia.ca!nstn.ns.ca!nstn.ns.ca!nntp-user Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits From: dlane at hercules.stmarys.ca (David J. Lane) Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: New SBIG ST-6 file to FITS Converter available Date: 2 Nov 1994 09:45:43 -0400 Out of necessity, I have just completed writing a DOS program which batch-converts image files from Santa Barbara Instrument Group CCD Cameras into FITS format with all the header information left correctly encoded into the FITS header. The current SBIG FITS output is less than perfect and will not convert files in "batch". If anyone wants this program, its available at hercules.stmarys.ca as pub/tofits/tofits.exe. The file tofits.txt describes it. Dave Lane Observatory Technician Saint Mary's University Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada From fitsbits-request Wed Nov 2 19:47:52 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["751" "" " 2" "November" "1994" "23:52:36" "GMT" "Paul Benninghoff" "benning at smoked.cse.ogi.edu" "<3998o4$29k at reuter.cse.ogi.edu>" "22" "FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994110223:52:36" "FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?" (number " " mark " Paul Benninghoff Nov 2 22/751 " thread-indent "\"FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?\"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA05536; Wed, 2 Nov 94 19:47:52 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <3998o4$29k at reuter.cse.ogi.edu> Organization: Oregon Grad. Inst. Computer Science and Eng., Beaverton Path: saips.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!caen!uwm.edu!reuter.cse.ogi.edu!smoked.cse.ogi.edu!benning Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits,sci.data.formats From: benning at smoked.cse.ogi.edu (Paul Benninghoff) Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins? Date: 2 Nov 1994 23:52:36 GMT The following is a quote from a paper from the recent IEEE SSDM working conference (Modeling Complex Astrophysics Data, by A. Farris at the Space Telescope Science Institute): "FITS binary tables are widely use in astronomical data analysis systems. Many of these systems contain functions for defining and manipulating binary tables, including performing elementary join operations." I'm interested in finding out more about such software. I'm particularly interested in any DBMS-style operations such as an "elementary join" operation. Does anyone know what software is being referred to here, and where I can find out more about it? I've tried the FITS Web pages without much luck, so I thought I'd try here. Thanks in advance. - paul From fitsbits-request Thu Nov 3 10:28:52 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2761" "Thu" " 3" "November" "1994" "10:28:42" "-0500" "William Pence" "pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov" "<199411031528.KAA07461 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>" "56" "Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994110315:28:42" "FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?" (number " " mark " William Pence Nov 3 56/2761 " thread-indent "\"Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?\"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA07547; Thu, 3 Nov 94 10:28:52 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <199411031528.KAA07461 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> From: William Pence Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Cc: benning at smoked.cse.ogi.edu, pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov Subject: Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins? Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 10:28:42 -0500 benning at smoked.cse.ogi.edu (Paul Benninghoff) wrote: > The following is a quote from [...] A. Farris > at the Space Telescope Science Institute): > > "FITS binary tables are widely use in astronomical data analysis > systems. Many of these systems contain functions for defining and > manipulating binary tables, including performing elementary join > operations." > > I'm interested in finding out more about such software. I'm > particularly interested in any DBMS-style operations such as an > "elementary join" operation. Does anyone know what software is being > referred to here, and where I can find out more about it? The FTOOLS software package available at ftp site legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov in directory /software/ftools/release contains a number of programs that perform database type functions on FITS tables (either ASCII or binary tables). A new release of this software is expected by the end of this month. FTOOLS has been written and maintained by a small group of programmers at the HEASARC (High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center) at NASA/GSFC. Currently there is no 'join' function available, but there are tasks to do the following: fcreate - create a new FITS table based on ASCII template files fmerge - merge rows from several FITS tables into one FITS table fsort and fmemsort - tasks to sort a table on a given column(s) fcalc - calculate values for a column based on user-defined arithmetic expression based on the values in other columns fselect - create a new table containing selected rows from an existing table. The user-supplied selection criterion can be an almost arbitrarily complex boolean expression which is a function of the values in any columns of the table. fdump - display the values in selected rows and columns of a table fplot - plot the values in one or more columns of a table There are more than 100 other tasks in the FTOOLS package that perform other types of manipulation or analysis of FITS format files (many of which are oriented towards high-energy astrophysics applications.) A long-standing limitation in using FITS tables for database applications has been the difficulty in adding or deleting rows in an existing FITS table. The next release of the FITSIO interface library (due out next week and available in directory /software/fitsio/ at the above ftp site) will solve this problem by providing subroutines to insert or delete an arbitrary number of rows in existing FITS tables, even if the table is followed by other extensions in the FITS file. This capability will allow FITS tables to be used in very dynamic situations where the number of rows in a table must be frequently modified. -Bill Pence NASA/GSFC From fitsbits-request Fri Nov 4 10:02:43 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2655" "" " 4" "November" "1994" "13:36:17" "GMT" "Howard A. Bushouse" "bushouse at stsci.edu" "<39ddch$ir9 at marvel.stsci.edu>" "55" "Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994110413:36:17" "FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?" (number " " mark " Howard A. Bushous Nov 4 55/2655 " thread-indent "\"Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?\"\n") "<3998o4$29k at reuter.cse.ogi.edu>"] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA10457; Fri, 4 Nov 94 10:02:43 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <39ddch$ir9 at marvel.stsci.edu> Organization: Space Telescope Science Institute Path: solitaire.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!caen!uwm.edu!news.alpha.net!news.mathworks.com!yeshua.marcam.com!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!nic-nac.CSU.net!news.Cerritos.edu!news.Arizona.EDU!CS.Arizona.EDU!noao!stsci!bushouse References: <3998o4$29k at reuter.cse.ogi.edu> Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits,sci.data.formats From: bushouse at stsci.edu (Howard A. Bushouse) Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins? Date: 4 Nov 1994 13:36:17 GMT In article <3998o4$29k at reuter.cse.ogi.edu>, benning at smoked.cse.ogi.edu (Paul Benninghoff) writes: |> |> "FITS binary tables are widely use in astronomical data analysis |> systems. Many of these systems contain functions for defining and |> manipulating binary tables. |> |> I'm interested in finding out more about such software. I'm |> particularly interested in any DBMS-style operations such as an |> "elementary join" operation. Does anyone know what software is being |> referred to here, and where I can find out more about it? |> In addition to the FTOOLS software package that Bill Pence has already mentioned, there is also the IRAF external package known as TABLES that has been developed by the STSDAS group at the Space Telescope Science Institute. Within the TABLES package are several sub-packages that contain routines for reading and writing FITS tables, plotting data from tables, and a whole host of tables operators that are capable of handling both ASCII and binary tables. Here's a partial list of the "ttools" tasks: gtedit - Graphically edit a table. imtab - Copy an (IRAF) image to a table column. tabim - Copy a table column to an (IRAF) image. tcalc - Perform arithmetic operations on table columns. tcreate - Create a STSDAS table from an ASCII descriptor table. tdiffer - Form a table which is the difference of two tables. tedit - Edit a table. texpand - Expand tables according to a set of rules. thistogram - Make a histogram of a column in a table. tintegrate - Numerically integrate one column with respect to another. tjoin - Perform a relational join of two tables. tlinear - Use linear regression to fit one or two table columns. tmatch - Find closest match between rows in two tables tmerge - Either merge or append tables. tprint - Print tables--both headers and data. tproduct - Form the Cartesian product of two tables. tproject - Create new table from selected columns in a table. tquery - Create a new table from selected rows and columns in a table. tread - Browse through a table. trebin - Resample a table to uniform spacing. tselect - Create a new table from selected rows of a table. tsort - Sort a table. tstat - Get mean, standard deviation, min, and max for a column. tupar - Edit table header parameters. The TABLES package is available via anonymous ftp from node ftp.stsci.edu in directory /software/tables. You must of course first have IRAF to be able to install and use TABLES. -Howard Bushouse STSDAS group STScI From fitsbits-request Mon Nov 7 06:16:25 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1216" "Mon" " 7" "November" "1994" "12:16:27" "+0100" "Preben Grosbol" "pgrosbol at eso.org" "<9411071116.AA15948 at ns2.hq.eso.org>" "33" "Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994110711:16:27" "FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?" (number " " mark " Preben Grosbol Nov 7 33/1216 " thread-indent "\"Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?\"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA18765; Mon, 7 Nov 94 06:16:25 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <9411071116.AA15948 at ns2.hq.eso.org> From: Preben Grosbol Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins? Date: Mon, 7 Nov 94 12:16:27 +0100 In article <3998o4$29k at reuter.cse.ogi.edu>, Paul Benninghoff writes: |> The following is a quote from a paper from the recent IEEE SSDM |> working conference (Modeling Complex Astrophysics Data, by A. Farris |> at the Space Telescope Science Institute): |> |> "FITS binary tables are widely use in astronomical data analysis |> systems. Many of these systems contain functions for defining and |> manipulating binary tables, including performing elementary join |> operations." |> |> I'm interested in finding out more about such software. I'm |> particularly interested in any DBMS-style operations such as an |> "elementary join" operation. Does anyone know what software is being |> referred to here, and where I can find out more about it? |> |> I've tried the FITS Web pages without much luck, so I thought I'd try |> here. |> |> Thanks in advance. |> |> - paul |> The ESO-MIDAS system has an extended table package with an internal format very close to that of the BINTABLEs. A wide range of DBMS type operations are available. The package is available through ESO (see the ESO homepage on mosaic). A binary version for Linux can be obtained through anonymous ftp. Preben Grosbol SDAG/DMD, ESO From fitsbits-request Wed Nov 9 04:01:13 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["651" "" " 8" "November" "1994" "18:22:57" "GMT" "Paul Repacholi" "prep at yarrow.wt.uwa.edu.au" "" "18" "Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994110818:22:57" "FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?" (number " " mark " Paul Repacholi Nov 8 18/651 " thread-indent "\"Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?\"\n") "<9411071116.AA15948 at ns2.hq.eso.org>"] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA24240; Wed, 9 Nov 94 04:01:13 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: Organization: Winthrop Technology Path: solitaire.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!caen!msuinfo!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.uwa.edu.au!news!prep References: <9411071116.AA15948 at ns2.hq.eso.org> Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits From: prep at yarrow.wt.uwa.edu.au (Paul Repacholi) Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins? Date: 08 Nov 1994 18:22:57 GMT In article <9411071116.AA15948 at ns2.hq.eso.org> Preben Grosbol writes: > operations are available. The package is available through ESO (see > the ESO homepage on mosaic). A binary version for Linux can be obtained > through anonymous ftp. Please people, if you offer help like this *give the fine URL* etc... There, i feel better now. -- ~Paul +61 (09) 257-1001 prep at yarrow.wt.uwa.edu.au ( preferred ) 1 Crescent Rd, zrepachol at cc.curtin.edu.au Kalamunda, West Aust 6076 From fitsbits-request Wed Nov 9 15:49:26 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["111" "" " 9" "November" "1994" "13:38:15" "GMT" "Guy Rixon" "gtr at mail.ast.cam.ac.uk" "<39qjc7$2br at lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>" "3" "Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994110913:38:15" "FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?" (number " " mark " Guy Rixon Nov 9 3/111 " thread-indent "\"Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins?\"\n") "<39ddch$ir9 at marvel.stsci.edu>"] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA26958; Wed, 9 Nov 94 15:49:26 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <39qjc7$2br at lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> Organization: Royal Greenwich Observatory Path: solitaire.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!concert!gatech!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk!cast0.ast.cam.ac.uk!gtr References: <3998o4$29k at reuter.cse.ogi.edu> <39ddch$ir9 at marvel.stsci.edu> Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits,sci.data.formats From: gtr at mail.ast.cam.ac.uk (Guy Rixon) Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Re: FITS manipulation software / elementary joins? Date: 9 Nov 1994 13:38:15 GMT Interesting. Are there any import-export tools to connect FITS tables with common DMBSs like Oracle, Sybase? From fitsbits-request Wed Nov 9 18:21:52 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3719" "Wed" " 9" "November" "1994" "18:21:45" "-0500" "William Pence" "pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov" "<199411092321.SAA16699 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>" "82" "VERIFITS program" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994110923:21:45" "VERIFITS program" (number " " mark " William Pence Nov 9 82/3719 " thread-indent "\"VERIFITS program\"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA27489; Wed, 9 Nov 94 18:21:52 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <199411092321.SAA16699 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> From: William Pence Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Cc: pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov Subject: VERIFITS program Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 18:21:45 -0500 VERIFITS - A Program to Verify Any FITS File This is to announce that a new program called VERIFITS is available for verifying the integrity of any FITS format data file on magnetic disk. VERIFITS will read any FITS file and will check that all the keywords and data conform to the requirements given in the NOST FITS format Standard. It also issues warnings about other conditions that may indicate a problem even though they are allowed within the Standard (such as duplicate keywords). The goal in designing VERIFITS was to make it capable of verifying any FITS format file and have it detect any and all deviations from the FITS Standard (as defined in the NASA/NOST document). A list of all the checks performed by VERIFITS is given below. VERIFITS has been extensively tested, but there may still be cases in which it does not detect a FITS format error, or it issues an error message that does not accurately describe the real problem. Please send me a description of any such cases so that the next version of the program can be improved. VERIFITS is available via anonymous ftp from legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov in the /software/fitsio/verifits directory. For convenience, several different binary executable versions of the program are available, for running on SUN workstations, DECstations, DEC Alphas running OSF/1 or VAX/VMS machines. The VERIFITS source code is also provided and may be easily linked with the FITSIO library (available in /software/fitsio) to run on any other type of machine. The VERIFITS program is actually a stand alone version of the fverify task that is included in the IRAF or Host FTOOLS package that also contains many other FITS file utilities. Both VERIFITS and fverify perform the same verification checks, but fverify has a nicer user interface, as provided by the IRAF or Host environments. See the files in the /software/ftools/release directory for more information about FTOOLS. DESCRIPTION OF THE CHECKS PERFORMED BY VERIFITS VERIFITS goes though the following sequence of steps to verify any FITS file. These steps are repeated for every FITS extension in the file until the end of file is detected. - Read all the required keywords and check that they are in the correct order and have legal values. - Read and parse any remaining keywords in the header to ensure that they conform to the required FITS syntax. - Issue a warning if there are duplicate keywords, excluding keywords like COMMENT and HISTORY. - Issue a warning if there are any keywords without an '= ' in column 9-10 (i.e., have no value field). This excludes keywords like COMMENT and HISTORY. - Check that the fill bytes following the END keyword are filled with ASCII spaces. - Read all the data values and compute the minimum and maximum values as well as the number of undefined values. In the case of 'Random Groups' FITS files, each group is checked separately. In the case of ASCII or Binary table extensions, the minimum and maximum in each column is computed separately. This option may be turned off to make the program run faster. - Check that any fill bytes following the data are initialized correctly. - Check for any extra bytes of data in the file following the last FITS extension. This may indicate the presence of 'Special Records' at the end of the FITS file. VERIFITS generates a report summarizing the contents of the FITS file including a listing of any error or warning messages. The report may optionally include a listing of all the header keywords if desired. Please report any questions or problems regarding this program to: Bill Pence pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov HEASARC, NASA/GSFC From fitsbits-request Thu Nov 10 14:08:27 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3752" "Thu" "10" "November" "1994" "14:08:21" "-0500" "William Pence" "pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov" "<199411101908.OAA17075 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>" "91" "Updates to FITSIO and FTOOLS" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994111019:08:21" "Updates to FITSIO and FTOOLS" (number " " mark " William Pence Nov 10 91/3752 " thread-indent "\"Updates to FITSIO and FTOOLS\"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA01261; Thu, 10 Nov 94 14:08:27 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <199411101908.OAA17075 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> From: William Pence Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Cc: pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov Subject: Updates to FITSIO and FTOOLS Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1994 14:08:21 -0500 This note describes a number of important new features available in the latest FITSIO and FTOOLS releases from the HEASARC at NASA/GSFC. 1. FITSIO Subroutine Library Update The FITSIO library of subroutines to read and write FITS files has been significantly enhanced in the past few months, so users of this package should obtain the latest version to take advantage of the new features. FITSIO is available from the legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov ftp account in the /software/fitsio and /software/fitsio/cfitsio directories. The recent improvements include: - The new "FITSIO Cookbook" document provides programming guidelines and annotated listings of many example programs that use FITSIO to read or write FITS files. Programmers may adapt these programs for their own use. - The CFITSIO wrapper routines for calling FITSIO from C programs have been more thoroughly tested and upgraded from a beta release to a fully supported release. - One can now easily insert or delete rows in an existing FITS table using the new ftirow or ftdrow routines. These may be used even if the FITS table is followed by other FITS extensions. - FITSIO has been further ported to run on Cray supercomputers, on HP 9000 series computers, and on IBM PCs using the Linux Unix-like operating system. Linux users should note that older versions of FITSIO may produce incorrect results when dealing with Byte arrays (BITPIX=8) or Byte columns in binary tables due to a 'feature' in the f2c compiler. - FITSIO now does range checking to detect and trap any numerical overflows whenever the FITS data is scaled or whenever implicit data type conversion is performed. - An 'Error Message' stack has been added to FITSIO to provide more detailed information about any error conditions. - FITSIO now supports the new OGIP convention for long string keyword values that are continued over multiple header keywords. - Better support for all the IEEE floating point special values has been added. - A new set of routines is available that will update the value of a keyword if it already exists or write a new keyword if it doesn't exist. - A new set of routines is avaiable to read any consecutive set of bits as an unsigned integer from a bit ('X') or byte ('B') column in a binary table. - FITSIO now performs more detailed verification checks to ensure that any FITS file that it reads or writes conforms to the FITS Standard. - New subroutines have been added (a) to get an available logical unit number for use when opening or creating a FITS file, and (b) to delete a file. - Many other small enhancements and bug fixes have been added. 2. New FTOOLS Release Version 3.2 of the FTOOLS package has just been released on legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov in the /software/ftools/release ftp directory. FTOOLS is a collection of more than 100 programs that perform various operations on FITS format files. Users of FTOOLS now have the option to either install the entire FTOOLS package, which includes many High-Energy Astrophysics related tasks, or just build the 'core' set of FTOOLS that perform more generic types of operations on any FITS file. As in previous releases, FTOOLS may be built as a package within the IRAF data analysis system or as a standalone set of executable tasks that are run directly from the operating system prompt. FTOOLS is supported on the following platformes: unix ALPHA/OSF, DEC/ULTRIX, SUN/SunOS, Sun/Solaris, MODCOMP/REALIX, vms ALPHA/VMS, VAX/VMS Any questions or comments about FTOOLS should be sent to ftoolshelp at athena.gsfc.nasa.gov Bill Pence pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov HEASARC, NASA/GSFC From fitsbits-request Fri Nov 11 10:20:49 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1084" "" "10" "November" "1994" "20:29:15" "GMT" "William Thompson" "William.T.Thompson.1 at gsfc.nasa.gov" "<39tvqr$388 at paperboy.gsfc.nasa.gov>" "28" "Forcing files to not be displayed." "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994111020:29:15" "Forcing files to not be displayed." (number " " mark " William Thompson Nov 10 28/1084 " thread-indent "\"Forcing files to not be displayed.\"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA04120; Fri, 11 Nov 94 10:20:49 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <39tvqr$388 at paperboy.gsfc.nasa.gov> Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA Path: solitaire.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!darwin.sura.net!tulane!ames!newsfeed.gsfc.nasa.gov!usenet Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits,comp.mail.mime From: William Thompson Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Forcing files to not be displayed. Date: 10 Nov 1994 20:29:15 GMT Does anyone know a way to set up a .mailcap file so that programs such as Mosaic, Netscape, etc. will simply download the file instead of trying to display it? For example, it seems to be very popular in the FITS community to use the MIME type "image/x-fits" for FITS files. On most systems the default for anything marked as an image is to run a generic program, such as xv or lview, that works with GIF and JPEG files and the like. However, this may not be the appropriate thing to do with FITS files, and the user may not have a FITS viewer. I know that using "application/x-fits" does make Mosaic, etc. download the file as binary rather than trying to display it. However, it does make sense to distinguish those FITS files that are simple images so that those who do have the proper software can simply pop up the images directly. What I'm looking for is something simple that people can do to avoid calling xv or whatever if they don't have a proper FITS viewer. I tried simply putting the line image/x-fits; in my .mailcap file, but that didn't work. Bill Thompson From fitsbits-request Fri Nov 11 10:31:38 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1444" "Fri" "11" "November" "1994" "16:37:01" "+0100" "Lucio Chiappetti" "lucio at ifctr.mi.cnr.it" "" "30" "Re: Forcing files to not be displayed." "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994111115:37:01" "Forcing files to not be displayed." (number " " mark " Lucio Chiappetti Nov 11 30/1444 " thread-indent "\"Re: Forcing files to not be displayed.\"\n") "<39tvqr$388 at paperboy.gsfc.nasa.gov>"] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA04146; Fri, 11 Nov 94 10:31:38 EST Return-Path: Organization: Istituto di Fisica Cosmica e Tecnologie Relative In-Reply-To: <39tvqr$388 at paperboy.gsfc.nasa.gov> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Lucio Chiappetti Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: William Thompson Cc: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Re: Forcing files to not be displayed. Date: Fri, 11 Nov 1994 16:37:01 +0100 (MET) On 10 Nov 1994, William Thompson wrote: > Does anyone know a way to set up a .mailcap file so that > programs such as Mosaic, Netscape, etc. will simply download > the file instead of trying to display it? For example, it > > looking for is something simple that people can do to avoid > calling xv or whatever if they don't have a proper FITS > viewer. > I do not know of anything which can be done at the server end, but at the user end, the user may click on "Load to Local Disk" in the Options menu. I presume this can also be set as a default via X resources. What I did when I had some "funny" files (VMS Backups compressed with a VMS specific code) to make available via WWW, was to put some warnings in the page with the URLs, saying : to upload those, click on Load to Local Disk first. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A member of G.ASS : Group for Astronomical Software Support ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lucio Chiappetti - IFCTR/CNR | Ma te' vugl' da' quost avis a ti' Orsign via Bassini 15 - I-20133 Milano | Buttet rabios intant te se' pisnign Internet: LUCIO at IFCTR.MI.CNR.IT | Decnet: IFCTR::LUCIO | (Rabisch, II 46, 119-120) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fitsbits-request Mon Nov 14 07:59:47 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1535" "Mon" "14" "November" "1994" "07:59:44" "EST" "Bill Cotton" "bcotton at gorilla.cv.nrao.edu" "<9411141259.AA12225 at gorilla.cv.nrao.edu>" "36" "Patch to FITSview for MS-Windows" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994111412:59:44" "Patch to FITSview for MS-Windows" (number " " mark " Bill Cotton Nov 14 36/1535 " thread-indent "\"Patch to FITSview for MS-Windows\"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA14749; Mon, 14 Nov 94 07:59:47 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <9411141259.AA12225 at gorilla.cv.nrao.edu> From: bcotton at gorilla.CV.NRAO.EDU (Bill Cotton) Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at gorilla.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Patch to FITSview for MS-Windows Date: Mon, 14 Nov 94 07:59:44 EST FITSview (0.3.1) for MS Windows November 14, 1994 This is to announce the availability of a corrected version of the beta release of FITSview for MS Windows. This release fixes a bug which inhibited the use of a text file to mark positions on images. Also, the distribution zip file is substantially smaller due to prefiltering of the demonstration FITS images to improve their compressibility. This is a FITS image viewer for Windows which features manipulation of the display (brightness, contrast, pseudo color), zoom and scroll, blinking images for comparison, displaying 3-D images as a "movie", and determining the celestial position and brightness of features in the image. Celestial positions are determined using world coordinate projections (WCS). All defined FITS data types are supported (8, 16, 32 bit integers and 32 and 64 bit IEEE), as are blanked pixels. Two and three dimensional simple FITS images are supported. FITSview runs on Windows 3.1 or later and uses any multicolor (or multiple gray level) display although 256 color displays give the best results. Extensive online documentation is included. FITSview for Windows is available at no cost via anonymous ftp as the two files: ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits/os-support/ms-windows/fitsview/fitsv031.txt ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits/os-support/ms-windows/fitsview/fitsv031.zip Installation is described in file fitsv031.txt. Implementations under X-windows and MacIntosh are under consideration. bcotton at nrao.edu From fitsbits-request Mon Nov 14 22:42:50 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2246" "" "15" "November" "1994" "03:42:40" "GMT" "Patrick P. Murphy" "pmurphy at nrao.edu" "" "45" "Re: Forcing files to not be displayed." "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994111503:42:40" "Forcing files to not be displayed." (number " " mark " Patrick P. Murphy Nov 15 45/2246 " thread-indent "\"Re: Forcing files to not be displayed.\"\n") "<39tvqr$388 at paperboy.gsfc.nasa.gov>"] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA17917; Mon, 14 Nov 94 22:42:50 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, Virginia Path: solitaire.cv.nrao.edu!news!pmurphy References: <39tvqr$388 at paperboy.gsfc.nasa.gov> Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits,comp.mail.mime From: pmurphy at nrao.edu (Patrick P. Murphy) Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Re: Forcing files to not be displayed. Date: 15 Nov 1994 03:42:40 GMT In article <39tvqr$388 at paperboy.gsfc.nasa.gov>, William Thompson writes: WT> Does anyone know a way to set up a .mailcap file so that WT> programs such as Mosaic, Netscape, etc. will simply download WT> the file instead of trying to display it? For example, it WT> seems to be very popular in the FITS community to use the MIME WT> type "image/x-fits" for FITS files. On most systems the WT> default for anything marked as an image is to run a generic WT> program, such as xv or lview, that works with GIF and JPEG WT> files and the like. However, this may not be the appropriate WT> thing to do with FITS files, and the user may not have a FITS WT> viewer. There is a patch available to xv that permits it to read and write FITS files. Granted it's probably not capable of digesting, say, a UV database from AIPS, but for most FITS images it seems to work reasonably well. I have a copy of it on my anonymous ftp server orangutan.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.11] in /pub/aips/xv/FITS-v2.tar.Z. I've used this to patch both xv versions 2 and 3 successfully. Were you to have this, it would then be possible to view the image by clicking on the URL/link, viewing it in xv, and then using xv's save function to save it to a local disk. I have not used this mode of operation extensively, and it's not at all clear how much of the header would be preserved beyond the bare essentials, but it's a start. If you just want "pretty pictures" it's definitely a good method. Another option would be to use the .mailcap to specify: image/fits; saoimage %s Sorry, I don't know how to make the system recognise a binary file, though I'm sure it's possible. - Pat -- ============================================================================= Patrick P. Murphy, Ph.D. Scientific Programming Analyst National Radio Astronomy Observatory pmurphy at nrao.edu 520 Edgemont Road Tel: (804) 296-0372 Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 Fax: (804) 296-0278 Speaking only for himself. PGP key, URL on request ============================================================================= From fitsbits-request Tue Nov 15 06:46:59 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2121" "" "15" "November" "1994" "11:19:37" "GMT" "David Robinson" "drtr at mail.ast.cam.ac.uk" "<3aa5g9$2a8 at lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>" "50" "Re: Forcing files to not be displayed." "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994111511:19:37" "Forcing files to not be displayed." (number " " mark " David Robinson Nov 15 50/2121 " thread-indent "\"Re: Forcing files to not be displayed.\"\n") ""] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA19789; Tue, 15 Nov 94 06:46:59 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <3aa5g9$2a8 at lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> Organization: Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge Path: solitaire.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!darwin.sura.net!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk!drtr References: <39tvqr$388 at paperboy.gsfc.nasa.gov> Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits,comp.mail.mime From: drtr at mail.ast.cam.ac.uk (David Robinson) Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Re: Forcing files to not be displayed. Date: 15 Nov 1994 11:19:37 GMT In article pmurphy at nrao.edu (Patrick P. Murphy) writes: >There is a patch available to xv that permits it to read and write FITS >files. Granted it's probably not capable of digesting, say, a UV database >from AIPS, but for most FITS images it seems to work reasonably well. I >have a copy of it on my anonymous ftp server orangutan.cv.nrao.edu >[192.33.115.11] in /pub/aips/xv/FITS-v2.tar.Z. I've used this to patch >both xv versions 2 and 3 successfully. If you are using OSF/1 and these patches, then you should use a slightly later version of these patches, which has a tiny change. The newer version is on ftp-hst.ast.cam.ac.uk:/pub/software/xv-patches/FITS-v2.tar.Z, or you can apply the patch at the end of this message. If you are not running OSF/1, then the version at nrao is ok, and may be quicker to fetch from within the USA. >Were you to have this, it would then be possible to view the image by >clicking on the URL/link, viewing it in xv, and then using xv's save >function to save it to a local disk. I have not used this mode of >operation extensively, and it's not at all clear how much of the header >would be preserved beyond the bare essentials, but it's a start. If you >just want "pretty pictures" it's definitely a good method. >... In the past, the author of xv has said that the 'next' version will support FITS files. However, I recently mailed the author telling him of the interest here in displaying FITS files via WWW, and asking him whether FITS would be supported in xv-3.10; I've had no response. David Robinson. (drtr at mail.ast.cam.ac.uk) --------- begin file: patch to xvfits.c from nrao for OSF/1 ------------------ *** xvfits.c.nrao Wed Jan 19 17:26:56 1994 --- xvfits.c Tue May 3 13:07:50 1994 *************** *** 38,47 **** --- 38,49 ---- /* end static data */ + #ifndef __ #ifdef __STDC__ #define __(x) x #else #define __(x) () + #endif #endif static int splitfits __((byte *image, char *comment, int nx, int ny, int nz, ------------ end file: patch to xvfits.c from for OSF/1 -------------------- From fitsbits-request Tue Nov 15 19:48:20 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["595" "" "15" "November" "1994" "08:47:36" "-0600" "Ion-Alexis George Yadigaroglu" "iony at leland.stanford.edu" "<3aahm8$nr at pecos.msfc.nasa.gov>" "18" "Alignment of X-ray and optical images." "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994111514:47:36" "Alignment of X-ray and optical images." (number " " mark " Ion-Alexis George Nov 15 18/595 " thread-indent "\"Alignment of X-ray and optical images.\"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA22108; Tue, 15 Nov 94 19:48:20 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <3aahm8$nr at pecos.msfc.nasa.gov> Organization: Stanford University, CA 94305, USA Path: solitaire.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!caen!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.msfc.nasa.gov!iony Reply-To: iony at leland.Stanford.EDU Newsgroups: sci.astro.research,sci.astro.fits From: iony at leland.Stanford.EDU (Ion-Alexis George Yadigaroglu) Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Alignment of X-ray and optical images. Date: 15 Nov 1994 08:47:36 -0600 I want to align an X-ray image that is 40 arcminutes square with a deep optical image that is much smaller, about 5 arcminutes. I have a digital survey plate that is much larger than both. I can find common stars in the survey plate with both the X-ray and deep optical image, and find their positions accurately. In theory this means that I can now align the X-ray and deep optical images. The question: how do I do this in practice using IRAF/NOAO/PROS/STSDAS. I would like the end result to be X-ray contours on top of the deep optical image. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Ion From fitsbits-request Fri Nov 18 12:01:02 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["798" "" "18" "November" "1994" "10:20:56" "-0600" "Phil Fischer" "philf at hst.hst.mh.att.com" "<3aik98$2hl at pecos.msfc.nasa.gov>" "21" "Re: Alignment of X-ray and optical images." "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994111816:20:56" "Alignment of X-ray and optical images." (number " " mark " Phil Fischer Nov 18 21/798 " thread-indent "\"Re: Alignment of X-ray and optical images.\"\n") "<3aahm8$nr at pecos.msfc.nasa.gov>"] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA02956; Fri, 18 Nov 94 12:01:02 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <3aik98$2hl at pecos.msfc.nasa.gov> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Path: solitaire.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!darwin.sura.net!news.larc.nasa.gov!news.msfc.nasa.gov!not-for-mail References: <3aahm8$nr at pecos.msfc.nasa.gov> Reply-To: philf at physics.att.com Newsgroups: sci.astro.research,sci.astro.fits From: philf at hst.hst.mh.att.com (Phil Fischer) Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Re: Alignment of X-ray and optical images. Date: 18 Nov 1994 10:20:56 -0600 In article <3aahm8$nr at pecos.msfc.nasa.gov>, Ion-Alexis George Yadigaroglu wrote: >I want to align an X-ray image that is 40 arcminutes square with >a deep optical image that is much smaller, about 5 arcminutes. > >I have a digital survey plate that is much larger than both. > >I can find common stars in the survey plate with both the X-ray >and deep optical image, and find their positions accurately. >In theory this means that I can now align the X-ray and deep >optical images. > >The question: how do I do this in practice using IRAF/NOAO/PROS/STSDAS. >I would like the end result to be X-ray contours on top of the deep >optical image. IRAF images can be rotated, stretched, etc using the IRAF tasks GEOMAP and GEOTRAN. The input is the matched star list. Phil From fitsbits-request Tue Nov 22 11:05:31 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1175" "" "22" "November" "1994" "16:05:22" "GMT" "Patrick P. Murphy" "pmurphy at nrao.edu" "" "25" "Re: Forcing files to not be displayed." "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994112216:05:22" "Forcing files to not be displayed." (number " " mark " Patrick P. Murphy Nov 22 25/1175 " thread-indent "\"Re: Forcing files to not be displayed.\"\n") "<3aa5g9$2a8 at lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>"] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA17269; Tue, 22 Nov 94 11:05:31 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, Virginia Path: solitaire.cv.nrao.edu!news!pmurphy References: <39tvqr$388 at paperboy.gsfc.nasa.gov> <3aa5g9$2a8 at lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits,comp.mail.mime From: pmurphy at nrao.edu (Patrick P. Murphy) Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Re: Forcing files to not be displayed. Date: 22 Nov 1994 16:05:22 GMT In article <3aa5g9$2a8 at lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>, drtr at mail.ast.cam.ac.uk (David Robinson) writes: DR> In article DR> pmurphy at nrao.edu (Patrick P. Murphy) writes: PM> There is a patch available to xv that permits it to read and write FITS ... DR> If you are using OSF/1 and these patches, then you should use a slightly DR> later version of these patches, which has a tiny change. The newer version Thanks. I've updated the copy of xvfits.c in the version here too, so if people on this continent want to get the revised version, they don't have to cross the Atlantic... - Pat -- ============================================================================= Patrick P. Murphy, Ph.D. Scientific Programming Analyst National Radio Astronomy Observatory pmurphy at nrao.edu 520 Edgemont Road Tel: (804) 296-0372 Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 Fax: (804) 296-0278 Speaking only for himself. PGP key, URL on request ============================================================================= From fitsbits-request Fri Nov 25 05:18:13 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["668" "Fri" "25" "November" "1994" "10:04:20" "+0000" "Grant Privett" "gjp at astro.cf.ac.uk" "<1994Nov25.100421.17059 at cm.cf.ac.uk>" "15" "Re: FITSIO in C" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994112510:04:20" "FITSIO in C" (number " " mark " Grant Privett Nov 25 15/668 " thread-indent "\"Re: FITSIO in C\"\n") ""] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA25393; Fri, 25 Nov 94 05:18:13 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <1994Nov25.100421.17059 at cm.cf.ac.uk> Organization: Dept. of Physics and Astronomy - UWCC Path: solitaire.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!caen!spool.mu.edu!agate!sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk!uknet!cf-cm!astro.cf.ac.uk!gjp References: Reply-To: gjp at astro.cf.ac.uk Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits From: gjp at astro.cf.ac.uk (Grant Privett) Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Re: FITSIO in C Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 10:04:20 +0000 Does anyone out there know if FITSIO has ever been translated into C? I know of the C wrappers created for the Fortran routines but was thinking of purely C code for the routines themselves. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Grant Privett Email : g.privett at astro.cf.ac.uk Starlink Application Programmer Phone : +44 (0)222 874000 ext 6991 University of Wales, College of Cardiff Fax : +44 (0)222 874056 Department of Physics and Astronomy P.O. Box 913, Cardiff, CF2 3YB. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From fitsbits-request Mon Nov 28 17:08:24 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["936" "Mon" "28" "November" "1994" "17:07:01" "-0500" "William Pence" "pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov" "<199411282207.RAA05247 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>" "20" "Re: FITSIO in C" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994112822:07:01" "FITSIO in C" (number " " mark " William Pence Nov 28 20/936 " thread-indent "\"Re: FITSIO in C\"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA07791; Mon, 28 Nov 94 17:08:24 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <199411282207.RAA05247 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> From: William Pence Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Cc: gjp at astro.cf.ac.uk, pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov Subject: Re: FITSIO in C Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 17:07:01 -0500 > > Does anyone out there know if FITSIO has ever been translated into > C? I know of the C wrappers created for the Fortran routines but > was thinking of purely C code for the routines themselves. > There is no pure C version that I know of. It would be a lot of work to duplicate and maintain a separate C version of FITSIO so it is much more practical to just provide the simple C wrappers. A new CFITSIO version is now in development that should be easier and more natural for C programmers to use. Instead of the large set of C wrapper routines that need to be compiled into a C library, the new CFITSIO will consist of a single cfitsio.h header file that defines all the FITSIO macro calls, and that will need to be 'included' in any C program that calls FITSIO. The C program will then just have to be linked with the single (Fortran) FITSIO library. This new version should be available in January 1995. -Bill Pence From fitsbits-request Mon Nov 28 17:56:18 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["8294" "Mon" "28" "November" "1994" "17:56:10" "-0500" "William Pence" "pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov" "<199411282256.RAA05292 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>" "178" "FITS Sorting Convention" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994112822:56:10" "FITS Sorting Convention" (number " " mark " William Pence Nov 28 178/8294 " thread-indent "\"FITS Sorting Convention\"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA07894; Mon, 28 Nov 94 17:56:18 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <199411282256.RAA05292 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> From: William Pence Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Cc: pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov Subject: FITS Sorting Convention Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 17:56:10 -0500 The OGIP/HEASARC FITS Working Group recently decided to adopt the following FITS keyword convention to specify the order in which the OGIP FITS tables have been sorted. This convention is very similar to the proposal that was posted to this newsgroup several months ago. We invite and encourage other groups to consider using this same convention in their own FITS tables. -The OGIP FITS Working Group NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ TSORTKEY - A Convention for Specifying the Sort Order of a FITS Table 1. Introduction Tables of data that are stored in FITS ASCII or binary table extensions are usually sorted on one or more columns of the table, and it is often advantageous for users of the table to know what sorting has been performed. Certain data processing operations can only be performed, or can be performed much more efficiently, if the table has been sorted in a particular way (e.g., in order of increasing time as opposed to increasing Right Ascension on the sky) so there is a need to be able to specify how any particular table has been sorted. To fill this need, a convention for using a newly defined TSORTKEY keyword to specify the sort order in a FITS table is defined below. 2. Definition of the TSORTKEY Keyword Convention The TSORTKEY keyword is reserved within this convention to indicate the order in which the rows in a FITS ASCII or binary table extension have been sorted. The value of the TSORTKEY keyword is a character string which lists the name (as given by the TTYPEn keyword) of the primary sort column, optionally followed by the names of any secondary sort column(s). The presence of this keyword indicates that the rows in the table have been sorted first by the values in the primary sort column; any rows that have the same value in the primary column have been further sorted by the values in the secondary sort column and so on for all the specified columns. If more than one column is specified by TSORTKEY then the names must be separated by a comma. One or more spaces are also allowed between the comma and the following column name. By default, columns are sorted in ascending order, but a minus sign may precede the column name to indicate that the rows are sorted in descending order. 3. Definition of the Sort Order for the Various Datatypes In order to avoid any ambiguity, the definition of the ascending sort order for all the possible FITS datatypes is given below: Integer or floating point columns are always sorted by numerical order and not by their internal ASCII representation in the case of ASCII table extensions. Complex datatype ('C' or 'M') columns are first sorted in numerical order of the real component (the first of the pair of numbers). Any rows that have the same real value are then further sorted in numerical order of the imaginary component (the second value in the pair). In bit datatype ('X') columns, the zero or 'unset' bits will appear first in sorted order followed by the one or 'set' bits. In logical datatype ('L') columns, the false values (F) will appear first followed by the true (T) values. Character ('A') columns are sorted in order of the ASCII collating sequence of the characters. By default the entire string in the ASCII field is used to determine the sorted order. In other words the table is first sorted in order of the first character in the field, then rows that have the same first character are further sorted in order of the second character and so on until all the characters have been used. The vector subset notation described below may be used to specify that a table has been sorted on a substring of characters within the table field. Any null or undefined elements in a sort column will appear after all the defined values when the table is sorted in ascending order. 4. Conventions for Sorting Vector Columns Vector columns are by default sorted on the value of every element within the vector. The rows are first sorted in order of the value of the first element of the vector, then rows that have same first value are further sorted by the value of the second element, and so on. If the vectors do not all have the same length (i.e., the column contains ASCII NUL terminated character strings or uses variable length array descriptors) then the shorter of 2 otherwise identical vectors shall appear first when sorted in ascending order (e.g., the 4-character string 'FORM' shall occur before the 6-character string 'FORMAT'). If a table has been sorted based only on the value of single element in the vector, then this may be indicated by including the vector element number (starting with 1 for the first element) in parentheses after the column name in the TSORTKEY keyword value. For example, TSORTKEY= 'ARRAY(4)' indicates that the table has been sorted on the value of the 4th element in the vector field. If a table has been sorted in turn on several different elements within the vector, then each element should be listed in the TSORTKEY value, as in TSORTKEY= 'ARRAY(2), ARRAY(3), ARRAY(4)' to indicate that the table is sorted first by the 2nd element, then by the 3rd element, and finally by the 4th element. A shorthand notation may be used to indicate that a table has been sorted on a set of adjacent elements in a vector by listing the first and last elements separated by a colon (:); The preceding example may thus be rewritten using this shorthand notation as: TSORTKEY= 'ARRAY(2:4) This shorthand notation is most useful in conjunction with character string columns (in either ASCII or binary table extensions) to indicate that the table has been sorted on a substring within the vector of characters in the field. (Note that under this convention a character string field in an ASCII table extension is regarded as a vector of single characters, the same as in an ASCII character column in a binary table extension). 5. Restrictions on Column Names Under this Convention The FITS format definition does not require that the TTYPEn keyword be present in FITS tables, and when the keyword is present any ASCII text characters may be included in the value string. FITS tables that use this sorting convention are required, however, to use the TTYPE keyword to assign a unique name to every sorting column. In addition, certain punctuation characters must not be used in the column name to avoid confusion with the syntax used within this convention. Specifically, the minus sign must not be used as the first character of a column name, and the comma, and the open and close parenthesis characters must not be used anywhere in the name of a column that is used to sort the table. It is also strongly recommended that the column name should not contain any embedded blank characters, and instead the underscore character should be used to link separate words in a column name together into a single string (e.g., use 'OBJECT_NAME' not 'OBJECT NAME'). 6. Examples of the TSORTKEY Keyword Usage The following examples illustrate the typical usage of TSORTKEY keyword. TSORTKEY= 'X ' This table is sorted in ascending value of the X column. TSORTKEY= 'X,Y ' This table is sorted in ascending value of the X column. Rows that have the same value of X have been further sorted in ascending value of the Y column. TSORTKEY= '-TIME ' This table is sorted in descending value of the TIME column. TTYPE1 = 'SPECTRUM' TFORM1 = '10J ' TSORTKEY= 'ARRAY(1)' This binary table is sorted in ascending value of the first element of the SPECTRUM vector column. TTYPE1 = 'NAME ' TFORM1 = '20A ' TSORTKEY= 'NAME ' This binary table is sorted in ascending order on all 20 characters of the NAME field. This is equivalent to specifying TSORTKEY = 'NAME(1:20)' TTYPE1 = 'OBJECT ' TFORM1 = 'A20 ' TSORTKEY= '-OBJECT(2:4)' This ASCII table is sorted in reverse order on the 2nd through 4th characters (elements) of the OBJECT string column (which can be considered to be a vector of character elements). From fitsbits-request Tue Nov 29 03:30:16 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["933" "Tue" "29" "November" "1994" "09:30:04" "+0100" "Preben Grosbol" "pgrosbol at eso.org" "<9411290830.AA03446 at ns2.hq.eso.org>" "22" "Re: FITS Sorting Convention " "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994112908:30:04" "FITS Sorting Convention" (number " " mark " Preben Grosbol Nov 29 22/933 " thread-indent "\"Re: FITS Sorting Convention \"\n") "<199411282256.RAA05292 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>"] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA08917; Tue, 29 Nov 94 03:30:16 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <9411290830.AA03446 at ns2.hq.eso.org> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 28 Nov 94 17:56:10 EST." <199411282256.RAA05292 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> From: Preben Grosbol Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Re: FITS Sorting Convention Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 09:30:04 +0100 The proposal for a keyword to specify which columns in a table are sorted by The OGIP FITS Working Group seems very reasonable. It is clear that this information is important. The only point of concern is the usage of the column label given by the TTYPEn keyword. This brings three problems with it: 1) Since TTYPEn is optional it is not possible to indicate sorting of the table if only the minimum required keywords are given. 2) Although the NOST-100 recommends that TTYPEn only contains letters, digits, and underscore, it is possible to have a label TTYPEn = '-B'. Thus, the proposal for TSORTKEY would not work in this case. 3) NOST-100 does not specify that the label given by TTYPEn must not be unique. Also here, the proposal for TSORTKEY would not work. Although not nice, these issues would be solved if the column index was used instead of its optional label name. Preben Grosbol, ESO From fitsbits-request Tue Nov 29 15:52:35 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["195" "Tue" "29" "November" "1994" "15:52:28" "EST" "Jonathan McDowell" "jcm at urania.harvard.edu" "<9411292052.AA23198 at urania.harvard.edu>" "7" "Simulated data" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994112920:52:28" "Simulated data" (number " " mark " Jonathan McDowell Nov 29 7/195 " thread-indent "\"Simulated data\"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA11070; Tue, 29 Nov 94 15:52:35 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <9411292052.AA23198 at urania.harvard.edu> From: jcm at urania.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Simulated data Date: Tue, 29 Nov 94 15:52:28 EST Is there a keyword in regular use by anyone that indicates that a dataset contains simulated or otherwise faked data for an observational instrument? Jonathan McDowell, AXAF Science Center From dwells Tue Nov 29 22:02:11 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["702" "Tue" "29" "November" "1994" "15:35:11" "+0100" "francois at simbad.u-strasbg.fr" "francois at simbad.u-strasbg.fr" "<9411291435.AA21256 at SIMBAD.u-strasbg.fr>" "16" "Re: FITS Sorting Convention " "^Resent-Message-Id:" nil nil "11" "1994112914:35:11" "FITS Sorting Convention" (number " " mark " francois at simbad.u Nov 29 16/702 " thread-indent "\"Re: FITS Sorting Convention \"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA11455; Tue, 29 Nov 94 22:02:11 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: <9411291435.AA21256 at SIMBAD.u-strasbg.fr> In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 28 Nov 1994 17:56:10 -0500 . X-Mts: smtp Resent-Message-Id: <9411300302.AA11455 at fits.cv.nrao.edu> Resent-Date: Tue, 29 Nov 94 15:35:11 +0100 Resent-From: dwells (Don Wells) Resent-To: fitsbits From: francois at SIMBAD.u-strasbg.fr Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Apparently-To: fitsbits Subject: Re: FITS Sorting Convention Date: Tue, 29 Nov 94 15:35:11 +0100 Just a few comments concerning the TSORTKEY convention proposed by OGIP: 1) The proposed definition implies additional non-standard FITS requirements: unique names, no possibility of names starting with the minus sign. Since FITS headers are (fortunately!) to be read only by programs, wouldn't it be so much simpler and less ambiguous to use only the TFIELD number, i.e. definitions like TSORTKEY = '1,-2,12,-14' 2) NULL values: does the definition state that, if a TNULL value is defined as "-999.99", these values will come AFTER a valid value like "999." ? Francois Ochsenbein , Centre de Donnees astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) CDS at http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/CDS.html From fitsbits-request Wed Nov 30 13:50:26 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["115" "Wed" "30" "November" "1994" "18:27:55" "GMT" "Amy B. Sprenkle" "abs9d at galen.med.virginia.edu" "" "6" "Re: FITSIO in C" "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994113018:27:55" "FITSIO in C" (number " " mark " Amy B. Sprenkle Nov 30 6/115 " thread-indent "\"Re: FITSIO in C\"\n") "<199411282207.RAA05247 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>"] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA12267; Wed, 30 Nov 94 13:50:26 EST Return-Path: Message-Id: Organization: uva Path: solitaire.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!murdoch!galen.med.Virginia.EDU!abs9d References: <199411282207.RAA05247 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits From: abs9d at galen.med.Virginia.EDU (Amy B. Sprenkle) Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: fitsbits at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: Re: FITSIO in C Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 18:27:55 GMT Hi, Bill Is there an FTP site where we can obtain the CFITSIO header and FITSIO library? Thanks, Rick Sprenkle