[fitsbits] coordinates by table lookup

[Steve Allen]

On Sun 2002-03-31T17:03:07 -0800, Steve Allen hath writ:
> I see this as a special case of a much more generic problem:
> representation of relational databases in FITS tables.

For further reference, I have a set of keywords created with the aim
of describing relational databases with FITS files.
They are available as a link under
http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/fits/
in particular they are the result of this query into our keyword database
http://www.ucolick.org/cgi-bin/Tcl/runRpt.cgi?target=rdb&type=MemeByCon

These are at the draft stage only, and they have not been developed
into any kind of operational system.  They are not directly relevant
to the WCS table proposals, but they do show some of the complexities
that arise when attempting to solve the general problem of referring
from entities in one FITS HDU to entities in another FITS HDU.

I believe that the Hierarchical Grouping proposal by Jennings et al.
provides fully general capabilities for external references to HDUs.
I intended that my experimental keywords provide fully general
capabilities for external references to keywords and table entries.

The question relevant for the WCS tables is how to pick a subset of
the fully general capabilities which is justifiably adequate.

--
Steve Allen          UCO/Lick Observatory       Santa Cruz, CA 95064
sla at ucolick.org      Voice: +1 831 459 3046     http://www.ucolick.org/~sla
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