[fitsbits] Proposed Changes to the FITS Standard

[Maren Purves]

Hate to say this, but we're starting to have a generation
problem. I got into FITS at the time of binary arrays,
not at the start (so I'm in the 'middle; generation). But
at this time we have people asking about how a FITS file
is different from an image and people asking about FITS
files with and without extensionsi - do we still have
FITS files without extensions?

It being "once FITS always FITS" I object to making the
EXTEND keyword optional.

Aloha,
Maren

On Tue, 21 Aug 2007, Preben Grosbol wrote:

> On Monday 20 August 2007 07:00, Craig Markwardt wrote:
>> Has EXTEND ever been optional for files with extensions?
>
> At the time when extensions were introduced, most readers would
> not even think of looking for them.  Thus, it was important that users
> could look on their primary header and see (and then complain) that
> there were extension data available in the file which were not detected
> by the local reader.
>
> Now that extensions are common and most readers would check, I see
> little problem in making EXTEND optional.  The ESO readers, I know of,
> all would scan the full file no matter what.
>
> Preben
> _______________________________________________
> fitsbits mailing list
> fitsbits at listmgr.cv.nrao.edu
> http://listmgr.cv.nrao.edu/mailman/listinfo/fitsbits
>