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<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" href="mailto:gbc@mit.edu">gbc@mit.edu</a>
(NOTE NEW EMAIL: gbc@haystack is no longer reliable)</pre>
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