ASCII table tricks

[Steve Allen]

In article <30AUG199616195125 at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov>,
Barry M. Schlesinger <bschlesinger at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:

>The standard says that all data must be ASCII text, not only data in
>fields.

Given the wording in 8.1.3 and the section title of 8.1.5 this is
not clear.

>The original Harten et al. tables paper states, "The data records are
>stored as a large character array....All information is stored as
>8-bit printable ASCII characters..."  This language excludes control
>characters.  There is no entry in appendix C to indicate that the
>standard differs from the FITS papers in this regard.

I believe that it is arguable that in the context of this paper the
word "information" only applies to the content within the fields of
the rows.

This interpretation appears defensible, and it has demonstrable
benefits.  Are there any technical arguments against it?

>This question will probably be discussed at the FITS Technical Panel
>meeting next month.

See y'all at ADASS.
--
Steve Allen          UCO/Lick Observatory       Santa Cruz, CA 95064
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