[fitsbits] Proposed Changes to the FITS Standard

[Preben Grosbol]

On Monday 13 August 2007 15:40, LC's NoSpam Newsreading account wrote:
> I am not sure what you mean here ? The fact that PCOUNT and GCOUNT are
> inthe 5th and 6th place in table 4.8 ? But table 6.1 shows (correctly)
> them in arbitrary position for random groups !

It may be a matter of exact wording but the random groups header is
the prime header.  A FITS reader which does not know about random
groups may flag such a header as an error if PCOUNT does not
follow directly after the last NAXISn keyword.

In principle the new Sec. 3.7 introduces a FITS version that is
in FITS v3+ certain things are not valid any more.  We previously
were very reluctant to introduce the concept of versioning but maybe
it cannot be avoided.  It is a rather principle matter which should
be discussed in some detail (maybe at the ADASS BoF).

Preben