[fitsbits] Fastest way to read a binary table

[Patrick L. Nolan]

Suppose I have a FITS file that contains a large binary table
and I want to read it all into my program using cfitsio.
By large I mean several hundred thousand rows.  And I have
several hundred files.
What's the fastest way to do it?

Currently I allocate an array for each column and then use
fits_read_col to read each.  I'm worried that it might be
reading the whole table into temporary storage each time I
call fits_read_col.  Does anyone know?

I read about FITS iterators, but that looks like a steep
learning curve.  Is it worth it?

Or is there something simple I missed?
-- 
*   Patrick L. Nolan                                          *
*   W. W. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory (HEPL)       * 
*   Stanford University                                       *