[comp.archives] [astro] FITS Binary Table Extension

dwells@fits.cx.nrao.edu (Don Wells) (04/12/91)

Archive-name: graphics/formats/fits-binary-table/1991-04-08
Archive: fits.cx.nrao.edu:/FITS/doc/bintable.* [192.33.115.8]
Original-posting-by: dwells@fits.cx.nrao.edu (Don Wells)
Original-subject: FITS Binary Table Extension
Reposted-by: emv@msen.com (Edward Vielmetti, MSEN)


		   Binary Table Extension to FITS:
			      A Proposal

			     W.D. Cotton
		 National Radio Astronomy Observatory

			    08 April 1991

A draft of the proposed binary table extension to FITS is now
available for public comment.  This format is intended to carry a wide
variety of data structures in a standard binary form.  The basic
structure is that of a table although a element may be an array of an
arbitrary size. Data types allowed include a variety of numeric,
logical and character types.

The 9-page LaTeX document may be obtained by anonymous-FTP to
fits.cx.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8], in the directory /FITS/doc, as the
files:

        138325 Apr  8 09:50 bintable.ps
         52700 Apr  8 09:50 bintable.ps.Z
         20454 Apr  8 09:45 bintable.tex

The .ps form should be printable on any Postscript printer. The .Z
file is a Unix-compressed version of the Postscript. A recipe for
fetching the files via anonymous-FTP is appended.

This proposal will be considered by the FITS Committees for adoption
as an extension to the FITS standards. The author will present the
proposal to the meeting of the European FITS Committee during the 3rd
ESO/ST-ECF Data Analysis Workshop in Garching, FRG, on Tuesday, 23
April. Comments on this proposed extension to FITS should be sent to

		  bcotton@nrao.edu or 6654::BCOTTON

	     =-=-=-=-=-= Anonymous-FTP Recipe =-=-=-=-=-=

The following session was executed on a Convex C-1. When it asked for
"Password:" the answer given was "guest" (anonymous-FTP is often
called the Anonymous Guest Convention). Only the Postscript file was
fetched in this example. Remember to specify "binary" mode if you
fetch the compressed (.Z) file!

nrao1% ftp 192.33.115.8
Connected to 192.33.115.8.
220 fits FTP server (SunOS 4.0) ready.
Name (192.33.115.8:dwells): anonymous
331 Guest login ok, send ident as password.
Password:
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
ftp> cd FITS
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> cd doc
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> dir
200 PORT command successful.
150 ASCII data connection for /bin/ls (192.33.115.4,2102) (0 bytes).
total 399
-rw-r--r--  1 dwells   vlb        138325 Apr  8 09:50 bintable.ps
-rw-r--r--  1 dwells   vlb         52700 Apr  8 09:50 bintable.ps.Z
-rw-r--r--  1 dwells   vlb         20454 Apr  8 09:45 bintable.tex
-rw-r--r--  1 dwells   vlb         99523 Jun 27  1990 fitsdbmsapp.ps
-rw-r--r--  1 dwells   vlb         42193 Jun 27  1990 fitsdbmsapp.ps.Z
-rw-r--r--  1 dwells   vlb         20603 Jun 27  1990 fitsdbmsapp.tex
-rw-r--r--  1 dwells   vlb          7775 Feb 28  1989 fitsfp89.txt
226 ASCII Transfer complete.
ftp> get bintable.ps
200 PORT command successful.
150 ASCII data connection for bintable.ps (192.33.115.4,2103) (138325 bytes).
226 ASCII Transfer complete.
144212 bytes received in 2.5 seconds (56 Kbytes/s)
ftp> quit
221 Goodbye.
--

Donald C. Wells             Associate Scientist        dwells@nrao.edu
National Radio Astronomy Observatory                   +1-804-296-0277
Edgemont Road                                     Fax= +1-804-296-0278
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2475 USA            78:31.1W, 38:02.2N