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<p>Note that SCHED preserves the case of the station codes in the
catalog. But if you specify station names by code in a schedule
file, the comparison with the catalog is done case independent.
Upper case versions of both are compared. So, if you specify two
stations in the catalog with the same letters, just different
cases, you can end up with problems.</p>
<p>SCHED also allows the use of 3 characters which I think will
become more important as the bigger arrays come on line. They
might need to be even longer. At some point, one wonders if the
codes are even that useful. I think their main advantage is when
making human readable tables, such as those in Sched of baseline
lengths, they can be reasonably compact. Maybe there should be
just one name/code with a maximum character count. Even as it is,
there are multiple antennas in the catalog with the same code -
usually different antennas or pads at single stations such as the
VLA or the DSN stations.</p>
<p>Cheers,</p>
<p>Craig</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/14/24 8:43 AM, Geoffrey B. Crew
via Difx-users wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:e7ff1124-0f5d-4e12-a6b7-079ad9f00c24@mit.edu">
<p>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:<br>
</p>
<p>Fortran did not have good string handling and the (original)
character set was limited; hence capitalization in AIPS. VEX
came later, particularly <b>after</b> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.)<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Somewhat earlier Leonid wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:x7yplwz5m8a.fsf@jive.eu">
<pre><blockquote type="cite" style="color: #007cff;"><pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Dear colleagues,
Can you clarify, is there a convention on a case of two-letter station
codes:
gs, GS, or Gs?</pre></blockquote></pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Geoff Crew
MIT Haystack Observatory
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:gbc@mit.edu" moz-do-not-send="true">gbc@mit.edu</a>
(NOTE NEW EMAIL: gbc@haystack is no longer reliable)</pre>
<br>
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</pre>
</blockquote>
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