[fitsbits] Bintable proposals

[John E. Davis]

On 15 Nov 2001 23:13:15 -0500, Mark Calabretta <Mark.Calabretta at atnf.CSIRO.AU>
wrote:
>This raises another question: what should a general bintable reader do if
>it encounters an EOF before reading the number of rows specified by NAXIS2?
>Hopefully not crash!  So should it adjust its own value of the number of
>rows to reflect what it found (if it matters)?  If so, could we instead set
>NAXIS2 to some huge value and rely on the EOF?

I do not think so.  The fits reader that I wrote for MARX, the Chandra
X-ray simulator, regards the file as corrupt if it does not have the
number of rows specified by NAXIS2.   I suspect that there are other
fits readers that bahave similarly.

I sympathize with your problem and do not have a solution except to
suggest that you reprocess your tapes off-line to convert them to
proper fits files with NAXIS2 set to the proper value.  Keep in mind
that there are probably limitations to the maximum file size supported
by fits, e.g., 4 Gb.

Good luck,
--John