[fitsbits] Start of the CONTINUE keyword Public Comment Period

[Craig Markwardt]

Rob Seaman <seaman at noao.edu> writes:
> > The CONTINUE convention, however, is different in providing a more
> > general capability that could be used, for instance, within any
> > other convention.
> 
> I don't think I emphasized this point enough.  A continuation
> convention, whether the one on the table or any other, changes the
> meaning of other conventions.  One could, for instance, recast a
> CHECKSUM keyword:
> 
> 	CHECKSUM= 'nADTnADQnADQnADQ'    /  ASCII 1's complement checksum
> 
> as:
> 
> 	CHECKSUM= 'nADTnADQ&       '    /  ASCII 1's complement checksum
> 	CONTINUE  'nADQnADQ'
> 
> This would apply to your favorite string valued keyword as well.  The
> example above would be a legal continuation but an illegal checksum
> value.  (More than illegal for this example since the byte ordering
> needs to be preserved for the zeroing feature of the checksum to work.)

Bill, could the convention be clarified to indicate that CONTINUE
should not be used for keyword values that could fit in a single FITS
card?  And/or, that CONTINUE should be avoided for standard FITS
keywords?

Craig