From fitsbits-request  Wed Nov  2 09:01:18 1994
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	["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]
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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
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	["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]
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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
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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]
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From: William Pence <pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>
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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
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	["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>"]
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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)
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From: Preben Grosbol <pgrosbol at eso.org>
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" "<PREP.94Nov9022257 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>"]
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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 <pgrosbol at eso.org> 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
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	["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>"]
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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]
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Message-Id: <199411092321.SAA16699 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>
From: William Pence <pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>
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)
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Message-Id: <199411101908.OAA17075 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>
From: William Pence <pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>
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: <news at solitaire.CV.NRAO.EDU>
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 <William.T.Thompson.1 at gsfc.nasa.gov>
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" "<Pine.3.89.9411111657.r7982-0100000 at poseidon.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: <lucio at ifctr.mi.cnr.it>
Organization: Istituto di Fisica Cosmica e Tecnologie Relative
In-Reply-To: <39tvqr$388 at paperboy.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Message-Id: <Pine.3.89.9411111657.r7982-0100000 at poseidon.ifctr.mi.cnr.it>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
From: Lucio Chiappetti <lucio at ifctr.mi.cnr.it>
Sender: fitsbits-request at fits.CV.NRAO.EDU
To: William Thompson <William.T.Thompson.1 at gsfc.nasa.gov>
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: <bcotton at gorilla.CV.NRAO.EDU>
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" "<PMURPHY.94Nov14224240 at orangutan.cv.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: <news at solitaire.CV.NRAO.EDU>
Message-Id: <PMURPHY.94Nov14224240 at orangutan.cv.nrao.edu>
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
   <William.T.Thompson.1 at gsfc.nasa.gov> 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") "<PMURPHY.94Nov14224240 at orangutan.cv.nrao.edu>"]
	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: <news at solitaire.CV.NRAO.EDU>
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> <PMURPHY.94Nov14224240 at orangutan.cv.nrao.edu>
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.94Nov14224240 at orangutan.cv.nrao.edu> 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$nr at pecos.msfc.nasa.gov>" "18" "Alignment of X-ray and optical images." "^From:" nil nil "11" "1994111514:47:36" "Alignment of X-ray and optical images." (number " " mark "     Ion-Alexis George Nov 15   18/595   " thread-indent "\"Alignment of X-ray and optical images.\"\n") nil]
	nil)
Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5)
	id AA22108; Tue, 15 Nov 94 19:48:20 EST
Return-Path: <news at solitaire.CV.NRAO.EDU>
Message-Id: <3aahm8$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: <news at solitaire.CV.NRAO.EDU>
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 <iony at leland.Stanford.EDU> 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" "<PMURPHY.94Nov22110522 at orangutan.cv.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: <news at solitaire.CV.NRAO.EDU>
Message-Id: <PMURPHY.94Nov22110522 at orangutan.cv.nrao.edu>
Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, Virginia
Path: solitaire.cv.nrao.edu!news!pmurphy
References: <39tvqr$388 at paperboy.gsfc.nasa.gov> <PMURPHY.94Nov14224240 at orangutan.cv.nrao.edu> <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 <PMURPHY.94Nov14224240 at orangutan.cv.nrao.edu>
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") "<rong.1.000FB10A at sun.gcc.ntu.edu.tw>"]
	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: <news at solitaire.CV.NRAO.EDU>
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: <rong.1.000FB10A at sun.gcc.ntu.edu.tw>
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]
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From: William Pence <pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>
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
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	["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]
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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)
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In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 28 Nov 94 17:56:10 EST."
	            <199411282256.RAA05292 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> 
From: Preben Grosbol <pgrosbol at eso.org>
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]
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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
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	["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]
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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
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	["115" "Wed" "30" "November" "1994" "18:27:55" "GMT" "Amy B. Sprenkle" "abs9d at galen.med.virginia.edu" "<D03FAK.G4w at murdoch.acc.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>"]
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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