[fitsbits] Proposed Changes to the FITS Standard

[William Pence]

William Thompson wrote:
> The SECCHI instrument on the STEREO mission produces some files with table 
> extensions, and other files which don't.  The value of the EXTEND keyword is set 
> to either T or F to account for this.

Strictly speaking, this does not conform to the definition of the EXTEND 
keyword in the FITS Standard, which states that the value field *shall* 
contain a logical constant with the value T, and thus must never be set 
to F.    All the more reason I think to demote this keyword by making it 
optional instead of required if the file contains extensions.

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