[fitsbits] Abuse of EXTEND keyword

[Randall Thompson]

 I understand this point however you can not prevent users
from adding their own (conforming) keywords  If the consensus is that
there should not be any connection between the primary header and 
extensions.
perhaps this should be stated in the revised standard. For example, 
state that it
should be possible to add extensions without requiring any changes to the
primary header. This would of course deprecate the EXTEND keyword.

Randy

Preben Grosbol wrote:

>On Thursday 23 August 2007 23:15, Randall Thompson wrote:
>  
>
>>Although not a
>>reserved keyword, NEXTEND is commonly used to describe the
>>number of included extensions
>>    
>>
>There is a danger in explicit references to either the number of
>extensions and individual ones.  It is trivial to remove or add
>extensions to FITS files.  With explicit references in the primary
>header, one would need to parse and correct it to maintain valid
>header information.
>
>Preben
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