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[fitsbits] Interpretation of repeat count in binary tables



 
 
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Old March 30th 08, 05:39 PM posted to sci.astro.fits
Paddy Leahy
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Default [fitsbits] Interpretation of repeat count in binary tables


Is the repeat count in TFORM descriptors provided purely for efficiency
reasons, or does it have some implications for the logical structure of
the data? Specifically, suppose we have

NAXIS1 = 12288 / width of table in bytes
NAXIS2 = 12288 / number of rows in table
....
TFIELDS = 3
TFORM1 = '1024E'
TFORM2 = '1024E'
TFORM3 = '1024E'

Should the three columns each be interpreted as a 1024 x 12288 element
2-D array, or as a 12582912-element 1-D array? The first implies that if
TFORMn = 'rTa', the default value of TDIMn = '(r)'. The second implies
that if TDIMn is not explicitly specified then the repeat count is just
provided for (rather spurious) efficiency reasons. Some FITS writers
certainly use it as such.

This question arises out of pure ignorance, but I have failed to find an
answer in either the original binary table paper (Cotton et al 1995) or
the current (2.0) or draft (3.0) FITS standards. In fact, none of these
documents give any hint as to what the repeat count is for (unless TDIMn
is explicitly present, or it is a character field).

regards,
Paddy

================================================== ====
Dr J. P. Leahy, Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics,
Current address: Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste
INAF, Via GB Tiepolo 11, 34143 Trieste, Italy
Tel.+39 040 3199160 Fax +39 040 309418


 




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