[fitsbits] FITS 'keyword dictionaries'

Fri Apr 11 20:26:31 EDT 2014

Hi,

On Apr 3, 2014, at 1:28 PM, Tom Kuiper <kuiper at jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:

> I remember seeing something like that a few years ago when I was working 
> on this issue but had forgotten.  As I recall, the suggestion was to 
> provide a URL for a repository with the detailed information.  I had 
> some concerns about that though.  For example, can we count on the 
> website being maintained?  A complete FITS header, at least, will exist 
> as long as the FITS file exists.

I think this is *exactly* the correct solution. This is how HTML and XML are handled. For example, a web page might begin with:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">

Here, the XML namespace is described and documented at the URL provided. You are correct that these documents can't be stored at random ethereal web sites, but instead should be hosted specifically at http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov, where the format lives (just as w3.org is where the web standards live).

The URL would be placed in the primary header user a specific keyword (e.g. FITSDICT) and then defined as part of the standard. For existing files, someone who is motivated can create a logic tree to determine which dictionary should be used given the headers present. This tree should be language independent.

Cheers,
Demitri

_________________________________________
Demitri Muna

Department of Astronomy
Der Ohio State University

http://scicoder.org/

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