[fitsbits] FITS Binary Table Proposals

[William Pence]

In response to the comments received so far during the official Public 
Comment Period on the proposals to incorporate the TDIMn and variable length 
array conventions for FITS binary tables into the official FITS Standard, I 
have created new detailed drafts of the proposals which are available at

http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/bintable_proposals.html

In particular, these new drafts contain the following changes:

1. As recommended by Tom McGlynn, the drafts now specify precisely the 
wording that should be inserted into the FITS Standard.

2. As recommended by Bob Garwood, the TDIMn convention has been extended 
slightly to allow the size of the array as given by the product of the 
dimensions to be "less than or equal" to the allocated array size in the 
FITS file.

3. As recommended by Francois Ochsenbein, a cautionary phrase has been added 
to warn users that the variable length array convention may present 
difficulties for applications that ingest FITS files via a sequential input 
stream.

The wording of these proposals may still not be optimal, so any further 
suggestions are welcome.


Bill Pence
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____________________________________________________________________
Dr. William Pence                          William.D.Pence at nasa.gov
NASA/GSFC Code 662         HEASARC         +1-301-286-4599 (voice)
Greenbelt MD 20771                         +1-301-286-1684 (fax)