[fitsbits] Fits Table Entries Referring to Keywords

[tam]

Just a thought that you might want to consider a simple ASCII table
rather than put the data in the headers...  Then you could either
include the table in each file, or have a master reference list
in a separate file.  There would be no limitations on the
name or lengths of the key or the full reference that come
up if you use the header.  ASCII tables can be quite
readable when dumping a FITS file -- and less sensitive to
the details of the window used since they can incorporate
new lines.

Just sounds like you're creating a lookup table, so maybe a table
is the appropriate structure.

	Regards,
	Tom McGlynn

Randall Smith wrote:
> 
> I've been writing a X-ray spectral calculation code (given a
> temperature between 10^4 and 10^9 K, and a (low) density, calculate
> the emitted spectrum), and storing all the requisite atomic data in
> FITS files (website at http://hea-www.harvard.edu/APEC).
> 
> I'd like to give detailed references to all of the atomic data, on a
> rate-by-rate basis.  The data is stored in FITS binary tables, with a
> 40 character ASCII column for references.  This is enough to give a
> reference for that data that can be reasonably easily parsed by a
> human.  What I'd like to do is change this to store the complete,
> journal-quality references in the header and then give a lookup value
> in the file.  Ie, on a particular line give the reference as "ZS87",
> and then in the header somehow list
> ZS87 = "Zhang,~H \& Sampson,~D.  1987, ApJ, 581, 183"
> 
> What I'm wondering is, is there any kind of standard for this?  I could
> make the ZS87 a keyword with a long string value equal to the full
> reference.  However, I'd like to have complete freedom in making up
> the lookup value, and that means there could be a conflict between the
> lookup value keyword and a real, well-defined FITS keyword.   Or I
> could use COMMENT statements which I could then parse, but this
> information is an important part of the file, and relegating it to
> "COMMENT" status doesn't seem right either.
> 
> Any suggestions?
> 
> Randall Smith
> rsmith at cfa.harvard.edu