[Difx-users] difx2mark4 bug {External}

[Geoffrey B. Crew]

I knew I was opening a can of worms on this one.  As a relative 
new-comer I was bit by this sort of thing a few times...and just assumed 
I was the only one confused.  Now I understand:

Fortran did not have good string handling and the (original) character 
set was limited; hence capitalization in AIPS.  VEX came later, 
particularly *after* K&R decided character (string) handling was 
something that needed to be fixed in C and there is no fixed convention 
other than Vex can handle mixed case and AIPS cannot.

With arrays such as SKA, ngVLA, &c under discussion, it seems that 
perhaps 2 characters are not enough and some guidance within the DiFX 
code base on "what is the plan" might not be a bad idea so that the 
developers can move into some coherence in the future.

And if AIPS is to survive into that era, some sort of mapping of station 
codes into all-upper-case two letter codes might eventually be 
necessary.  difx2mark4 already has an option to provide a map of 
two-letter codes to one letter codes.  (And we already decided HOPS4 
isn't going care and will use what is in the VEX.)

Somewhat earlier Leonid wrote:
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>>     Can you clarify, is there a convention on a case of two-letter station
>> codes:
>> gs, GS, or Gs?

-- 
Geoff Crew
MIT Haystack Observatory
gbc at mit.edu
(NOTE NEW EMAIL: gbc at haystack is no longer reliable)
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