[fitsbits] Start of the CHECKSUM Public Comment Period

This is to announce the start of the 30-day Public Comment Period on the
CHECKSUM FITS keyword convention that has been submitted for inclusion
in the 'Registry of FITS Conventions' which is maintained by the IAU
FITS Working Group. This is the 7th in a growing series of conventions
submitted for inclusion in the Registry.

A document describing this convention and a sample FITS file that uses
it are available for public review and comment from the FITS registry
web page at

http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_registry.html

Under this convention, the CHECKSUM and DATASUM header keywords are used
to verify the integrity of the HDU. Verifying that the accumulated
32-bit 1's complement checksum of the HDU is equal to -0 provides a fast
and fairly reliable way to determine that the HDU has not been modified
or corrupted.

Comments may be posted here on the FITSBITS mail exploder or the
sci.astro.fits newsgroup. Minor typographical issues may be sent
directly to the authors of the convention.

Bill Pence
(on behalf of the IAU FITS Working Group)
--
__________________________________________________ __________________
Dr. William Pence
NASA/GSFC Code 662 HEASARC +1-301-286-4599 (voice)
Greenbelt MD 20771 +1-301-286-1684 (fax)