[fitsbits] BINTABLE convention for >999 columns

William Pence William.Pence at nasa.gov
Fri Jul 7 16:35:30 EDT 2017



> On Jul 7, 2017, at 3:55 PM, Phil Hodge <hodge at stsci.edu> wrote:
> 
> Some of those base-36 "numbers" could be the same as parts of words.  You could have keyword TFORMAT, for example, as a keyword completely independent of the TFORMXXX sequence, or it could be TFORM for column AT.

The biggest problem with allowing base-36 index numbers is that it would invalidate existing FITS files.  TFORM100 in base-36 would then refer to the 1296th column in the table, not the intended 100th column.

> If you could wave a magic wand, why not just allow keyword names to be much longer, e.g. up to 50 characters?

There have been some private off-line discussions over the past couple years about the pros and cons of relaxing the 8-character limit on FITS keyword names.  Maybe it is time to publicize the status of those discussions more more widely...

-Bill

> Phil
> 
>> On 07/07/2017 03:35 PM, Richard Shaw wrote:
>> Hi Mark,
>> 
>> I can't help but wonder why the 'nnn' part of 'XXXXXnnn' was not allowed to be a non-negative base-36 number in the first place. Maybe there was some reason, perhaps even voiced at the time this extension type was being defined, but I can't think of what it would be. That would have allowed for 46656 columns, which is obviously still a limitation but less so than what we currently have. Were I to waive a magic wand to fold this idea into the current (4.0 Draft) Standard, I think what would need to change is the definitions of the TFIELDS keyword (non-negative base-36 integer), and the TFORMn keyword (allow for 'n' to be non-sequential but still increasing within the file). Or am I missing something?
>> 
>> -Dick Shaw
>> 
>> On Fri, Jul 7, 2017 at 9:45 AM, <fitsbits-request at listmgr.nrao.edu <mailto:fitsbits-request at listmgr.nrao.edu>> wrote:
>> 
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>> 
>>    Today's Topics:
>> 
>>       1. BINTABLE convention for >999 columns (Mark Taylor)
>>       2. Re: BINTABLE convention for >999 columns (Rob Seaman)
>>       3. Re: BINTABLE convention for >999 columns (Demitri Muna)
>> 
>> 
>>    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>>    Message: 1
>>    Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2017 12:09:15 +0100 (BST)
>>    From: Mark Taylor <M.B.Taylor at bristol.ac.uk
>>    <mailto:M.B.Taylor at bristol.ac.uk>>
>>    To: fitsbits at listmgr.nrao.edu <mailto:fitsbits at listmgr.nrao.edu>
>>    Subject: [fitsbits] BINTABLE convention for >999 columns
>>    Message-ID:
>>               <alpine.LRH.2.20.1707071059380.5525 at andromeda.star.bris.ac.uk
>>    <mailto:alpine.LRH.2.20.1707071059380.5525 at andromeda.star.bris.ac.uk>>
>>    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>> 
>>    Dear fitsbits,
>> 
>>    I am considering a convention for storing table data in FITS files
>>    where the number of columns exceeds the 999 limit implicitly imposed
>>    by the standard BINTABLE extension type.  I have running code for
>>    this (available on request) and plan to incorporate it in future
>>    releases of STIL/STILTS/TOPCAT so that people can work with wide
>>    tables in FITS while using those tools.  People using software
>>    that is unaware of this convention would still see a legal BINTABLE
>>    but not the later columns.
>> 
>>    I'm posting the details here in case people want to comment,
>>    or point out some major problem with the idea that I might have
>>    overlooked, or tell me that there's already a convention for
>>    this out there that I should be using instead. Otherwise, please
>>    feel free to ignore this post.  I'm not requesting that any
>>    other software implements this, though if anyone wants to I
>>    certainly don't object.
>> 
>>    Mark
>> 
>>    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>> 
>>    Extended column convention for FITS BINTABLE
>>    --------------------------------------------
>> 
>>    The BINTABLE extension type as described in the FITS Standard
>>    (FITS Standard v3.0, sec 7.3) requires table column metadata
>>    to be described using 8-character keywords of the form XXXXXnnn,
>>    where XXXXX represents one of an open set of mandatory, reserved
>>    or user-defined root keywords up to five characters in length,
>>    for instance TFORM (mandatory), TUNIT (reserved), TUCD (user-defined).
>>    The nnn part is an integer between 1 and 999 indicating the
>>    index of the column to which the keyword in question refers.
>>    Since the header syntax confines this indexed part of the keyword
>>    to three digits, there is an upper limit of 999 columns in
>>    BINTABLE extensions.
>> 
>>    Note that the FITS/BINTABLE format does not entail any restriction on
>>    the storage of column *data* beyond the 999 column limit in the data
>>    part of the HDU, the problem is just that client software
>>    cannot be informed about the layout of this data using the
>>    header cards in the usual way.
>> 
>>    In some cases it is desirable to store FITS tables with a column
>>    count greater than 999.  Whether that's a good idea is not within
>>    the scope of this discussion.
>> 
>>    To achieve this, I propose the following convention.
>> 
>>    Definitions:
>> 
>>     - 'BINTABLE columns' are those columns defined using the
>>          FITS BINTABLE standard
>> 
>>     - 'Data columns' are the columns to be encoded
>> 
>>     - N_TOT is the total number of data columns to be stored
>> 
>>     - Data columns with (1-based) indexes from 999 to N_TOT inclusive
>>          are known as 'extended' columns.  Their data is stored
>>          within the 'container' column.
>> 
>>     - BINTABLE column 999 is known as the 'container' column
>>          It contains the byte data for all the 'extended' columns.
>> 
>>    Convention:
>> 
>>     - All column data (for columns 1 to N_TOT) is laid out in the
>>    data part
>>          of the HDU in exactly the same way as if there were no
>>    999-column
>>          limit.
>> 
>>     - The TFIELDS header is declared with the value 999.
>> 
>>     - The container column is declared in the header with some
>>          TFORM999 value corresponding to the total field length required
>>          by all the extended columns ('B' is the obvious data type, but
>>          any legal TFORM value that gives the right width MAY be used).
>>          The byte count implied by TFORM999 MUST be equal to the
>>          total byte count implied by all extended columns.
>> 
>>     - Other XXXXX999 headers MAY optionally be declared to describe
>>          the container column in accordance with the usual rules,
>>          e.g. TTYPE999 to give it a name.
>> 
>>     - The NAXIS1 header is declared in the usual way to give the width
>>          of a table row in bytes.  This is equal to the sum of
>>          all the BINTABLE columns as usual.  It is also equal to
>>          the sum of all the data columns, which has the same value.
>> 
>>     - Headers for Data columns 1-998 are declared as usual,
>>          corresponding to BINTABLE columns 1-998.
>> 
>>     - Keyword XT_ICOL indicates the index of the container column.
>>          It MUST be present with the integer value 999 to indicate
>>          that this convention is in use.
>> 
>>     - Keyword XT_NCOL indicates the total number of data columns encoded.
>>          It MUST be present with an integer value equal to N_TOT.
>> 
>>     - Metadata for each extended column is encoded with keywords
>>          of the form XXXXXaaa, where XXXXX are the same keyword roots
>>          as used for normal BINTABLE extensions, and aaa is a 3-digit
>>          value in base 26 using the characters 'A' (0 in base 26) to
>>          'Z' (25 in base 26), and giving the 1-based data column index
>>          minus 999.  The sequence aaa MUST be exactly three characters
>>          long (leading 'A's are required).  Thus the formats for data
>>          columns 999, 1000, 1001, etc are declared with the keywords
>>          TFORMAAA, TFORMAAB, TFORMAAC etc.
>> 
>>     - This convention MUST NOT be used for N_TOT<=999.
>> 
>>    The resulting HDU is a completely legal FITS BINTABLE extension.
>>    Readers aware of this convention may use it to extract column
>>    data and metadata beyond the 999-column limit.
>>    Readers unaware of this convention will see 998 columns in their
>>    intended form, and an additional (possibly large) column 999
>>    which contains byte data but which cannot be easily interpreted.
>> 
>>    This convention can therefore allow encoding of tables with data
>>    column counts N_TOT up to 998+26^3 = 18574.
>> 
>>    An example header might look like this:
>> 
>>       XTENSION= 'BINTABLE'           /  binary table extension
>>       BITPIX  =                    8 /  8-bit bytes
>>       NAXIS   =                    2 /  2-dimensional table
>>       NAXIS1  =                 9229 /  width of table in bytes
>>       NAXIS2  =                   26 /  number of rows in table
>>       PCOUNT  =                    0 /  size of special data area
>>       GCOUNT  =                    1 /  one data group
>>       TFIELDS =                  999 /  number of columns
>>       XT_ICOL =                  999 /  index of container column
>>       XT_NCOL =                 1204 /  total columns including extended
>>       TTYPE1  = 'posid_1 '           /  label for column 1
>>       TFORM1  = 'J       '           /  format for column 1
>>       TTYPE2  = 'instrument_1'       /  label for column 2
>>       TFORM2  = '4A      '           /  format for column 2
>>       TTYPE3  = 'edge_code_1'        /  label for column 3
>>       TFORM3  = 'I       '           /  format for column 3
>>       TUCD3   = 'meta.code.qual'
>>        ...
>>       TTYPE998= 'var_min_s_2'        /  label for column 998
>>       TFORM998= 'D       '           /  format for column 998
>>       TUNIT998= 'counts/s'           /  units for column 998
>>       TTYPE999= 'XT_MORECOLS'        /  label for column 999
>>       TFORM999= '813I    '           /  format for column 999
>>       TTYPEAAA= 'var_min_u_2'        /  label for column 999
>>       TFORMAAA= 'D       '           /  format for column 999
>>       TUNITAAA= 'counts/s'           /  units for column 999
>>       TTYPEAAB= 'var_prob_h_2'       /  label for column 1000
>>       TFORMAAB= 'D       '           /  format for column 1000
>>        ...
>>       TTYPEAHW= 'var_prob_w_2'       /  label for column 1203
>>       TFORMAHW= 'D       '           /  format for column 1203
>>       TTYPEAHX= 'var_sigma_w_2'      /  label for column 1204
>>       TFORMAHX= 'D       '           /  format for column 1204
>>       TUNITAHX= 'counts/s'           /  units for column 1204
>>       END
>> 
>>    This general approach was suggested by William Pence on the FITSBITS
>>    list in June 2012
>>    (https://listmgr.nrao.edu/pipermail/fitsbits/2012-June/002367.html
>>    <https://listmgr.nrao.edu/pipermail/fitsbits/2012-June/002367.html>),
>>    and by Francois-Xavier Pineau (CDS) in private conversation in 2016.
>>    The details have been filled in by Mark Taylor (Bristol).
>>    (F-X favours a different mechanism for encoding the extended
>>    column metadata).
>> 
>>    --
>>    Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol
>>    University, UK
>>    m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk <mailto:m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk>
>>    +44-117-9288776 <tel:%2B44-117-9288776>
>>    http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/ <http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/%7Embt/>
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>    ------------------------------
>> 
>>    Message: 2
>>    Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2017 05:51:17 -0700
>>    From: Rob Seaman <seaman at lpl.arizona.edu
>>    <mailto:seaman at lpl.arizona.edu>>
>>    To: fitsbits at listmgr.nrao.edu <mailto:fitsbits at listmgr.nrao.edu>
>>    Subject: Re: [fitsbits] BINTABLE convention for >999 columns
>>    Message-ID: <9cfd2764-bf73-4c2f-d111-a15e3a2ccaca at lpl.arizona.edu
>>    <mailto:9cfd2764-bf73-4c2f-d111-a15e3a2ccaca at lpl.arizona.edu>>
>>    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>> 
>>    Why not simply split such tables into two+ extensions and join as
>>    needed?
>> 
>>    Rob
>> 
>>    --
>> 
>> 
>>    On 7/7/17 4:09 AM, Mark Taylor wrote:
>>    > Dear fitsbits,
>>    >
>>    > I am considering a convention for storing table data in FITS files
>>    > where the number of columns exceeds the 999 limit implicitly imposed
>>    > by the standard BINTABLE extension type.  I have running code for
>>    > this (available on request) and plan to incorporate it in future
>>    > releases of STIL/STILTS/TOPCAT so that people can work with wide
>>    > tables in FITS while using those tools.  People using software
>>    > that is unaware of this convention would still see a legal BINTABLE
>>    > but not the later columns.
>>    >
>>    > I'm posting the details here in case people want to comment,
>>    > or point out some major problem with the idea that I might have
>>    > overlooked, or tell me that there's already a convention for
>>    > this out there that I should be using instead. Otherwise, please
>>    > feel free to ignore this post.  I'm not requesting that any
>>    > other software implements this, though if anyone wants to I
>>    > certainly don't object.
>>    >
>>    > Mark
>>    >
>>    > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>>    >
>>    > Extended column convention for FITS BINTABLE
>>    > --------------------------------------------
>>    >
>>    > The BINTABLE extension type as described in the FITS Standard
>>    > (FITS Standard v3.0, sec 7.3) requires table column metadata
>>    > to be described using 8-character keywords of the form XXXXXnnn,
>>    > where XXXXX represents one of an open set of mandatory, reserved
>>    > or user-defined root keywords up to five characters in length,
>>    > for instance TFORM (mandatory), TUNIT (reserved), TUCD
>>    (user-defined).
>>    > The nnn part is an integer between 1 and 999 indicating the
>>    > index of the column to which the keyword in question refers.
>>    > Since the header syntax confines this indexed part of the keyword
>>    > to three digits, there is an upper limit of 999 columns in
>>    > BINTABLE extensions.
>>    >
>>    > Note that the FITS/BINTABLE format does not entail any
>>    restriction on
>>    > the storage of column *data* beyond the 999 column limit in the data
>>    > part of the HDU, the problem is just that client software
>>    > cannot be informed about the layout of this data using the
>>    > header cards in the usual way.
>>    >
>>    > In some cases it is desirable to store FITS tables with a column
>>    > count greater than 999.  Whether that's a good idea is not within
>>    > the scope of this discussion.
>>    >
>>    > To achieve this, I propose the following convention.
>>    >
>>    > Definitions:
>>    >
>>    >  - 'BINTABLE columns' are those columns defined using the
>>    >       FITS BINTABLE standard
>>    >
>>    >  - 'Data columns' are the columns to be encoded
>>    >
>>    >  - N_TOT is the total number of data columns to be stored
>>    >
>>    >  - Data columns with (1-based) indexes from 999 to N_TOT inclusive
>>    >       are known as 'extended' columns.  Their data is stored
>>    >       within the 'container' column.
>>    >
>>    >  - BINTABLE column 999 is known as the 'container' column
>>    >       It contains the byte data for all the 'extended' columns.
>>    >
>>    > Convention:
>>    >
>>    >  - All column data (for columns 1 to N_TOT) is laid out in the
>>    data part
>>    >       of the HDU in exactly the same way as if there were no
>>    999-column
>>    >       limit.
>>    >
>>    >  - The TFIELDS header is declared with the value 999.
>>    >
>>    >  - The container column is declared in the header with some
>>    >       TFORM999 value corresponding to the total field length
>>    required
>>    >       by all the extended columns ('B' is the obvious data type, but
>>    >       any legal TFORM value that gives the right width MAY be used).
>>    >       The byte count implied by TFORM999 MUST be equal to the
>>    >       total byte count implied by all extended columns.
>>    >
>>    >  - Other XXXXX999 headers MAY optionally be declared to describe
>>    >       the container column in accordance with the usual rules,
>>    >       e.g. TTYPE999 to give it a name.
>>    >
>>    >  - The NAXIS1 header is declared in the usual way to give the width
>>    >       of a table row in bytes.  This is equal to the sum of
>>    >       all the BINTABLE columns as usual.  It is also equal to
>>    >       the sum of all the data columns, which has the same value.
>>    >
>>    >  - Headers for Data columns 1-998 are declared as usual,
>>    >       corresponding to BINTABLE columns 1-998.
>>    >
>>    >  - Keyword XT_ICOL indicates the index of the container column.
>>    >       It MUST be present with the integer value 999 to indicate
>>    >       that this convention is in use.
>>    >
>>    >  - Keyword XT_NCOL indicates the total number of data columns
>>    encoded.
>>    >       It MUST be present with an integer value equal to N_TOT.
>>    >
>>    >  - Metadata for each extended column is encoded with keywords
>>    >       of the form XXXXXaaa, where XXXXX are the same keyword roots
>>    >       as used for normal BINTABLE extensions, and aaa is a 3-digit
>>    >       value in base 26 using the characters 'A' (0 in base 26) to
>>    >       'Z' (25 in base 26), and giving the 1-based data column index
>>    >       minus 999.  The sequence aaa MUST be exactly three characters
>>    >       long (leading 'A's are required).  Thus the formats for data
>>    >       columns 999, 1000, 1001, etc are declared with the keywords
>>    >       TFORMAAA, TFORMAAB, TFORMAAC etc.
>>    >
>>    >  - This convention MUST NOT be used for N_TOT<=999.
>>    >
>>    > The resulting HDU is a completely legal FITS BINTABLE extension.
>>    > Readers aware of this convention may use it to extract column
>>    > data and metadata beyond the 999-column limit.
>>    > Readers unaware of this convention will see 998 columns in their
>>    > intended form, and an additional (possibly large) column 999
>>    > which contains byte data but which cannot be easily interpreted.
>>    >
>>    > This convention can therefore allow encoding of tables with data
>>    > column counts N_TOT up to 998+26^3 = 18574.
>>    >
>>    > An example header might look like this:
>>    >
>>    >    XTENSION= 'BINTABLE'           /  binary table extension
>>    >    BITPIX  =                    8 /  8-bit bytes
>>    >    NAXIS   =                    2 / 2-dimensional table
>>    >    NAXIS1  =                 9229 /  width of table in bytes
>>    >    NAXIS2  =                   26 /  number of rows in table
>>    >    PCOUNT  =                    0 /  size of special data area
>>    >    GCOUNT  =                    1 /  one data group
>>    >    TFIELDS =                  999 /  number of columns
>>    >    XT_ICOL =                  999 /  index of container column
>>    >    XT_NCOL =                 1204 /  total columns including
>>    extended
>>    >    TTYPE1  = 'posid_1 '           /  label for column 1
>>    >    TFORM1  = 'J       '           /  format for column 1
>>    >    TTYPE2  = 'instrument_1'       /  label for column 2
>>    >    TFORM2  = '4A      '           /  format for column 2
>>    >    TTYPE3  = 'edge_code_1'        /  label for column 3
>>    >    TFORM3  = 'I       '           /  format for column 3
>>    >    TUCD3   = 'meta.code.qual'
>>    >     ...
>>    >    TTYPE998= 'var_min_s_2'        /  label for column 998
>>    >    TFORM998= 'D       '           /  format for column 998
>>    >    TUNIT998= 'counts/s'           /  units for column 998
>>    >    TTYPE999= 'XT_MORECOLS'        /  label for column 999
>>    >    TFORM999= '813I    '           /  format for column 999
>>    >    TTYPEAAA= 'var_min_u_2'        /  label for column 999
>>    >    TFORMAAA= 'D       '           /  format for column 999
>>    >    TUNITAAA= 'counts/s'           /  units for column 999
>>    >    TTYPEAAB= 'var_prob_h_2'       /  label for column 1000
>>    >    TFORMAAB= 'D       '           /  format for column 1000
>>    >     ...
>>    >    TTYPEAHW= 'var_prob_w_2'       /  label for column 1203
>>    >    TFORMAHW= 'D       '           /  format for column 1203
>>    >    TTYPEAHX= 'var_sigma_w_2'      /  label for column 1204
>>    >    TFORMAHX= 'D       '           /  format for column 1204
>>    >    TUNITAHX= 'counts/s'           /  units for column 1204
>>    >    END
>>    >
>>    > This general approach was suggested by William Pence on the FITSBITS
>>    > list in June 2012
>>    >
>>    (https://listmgr.nrao.edu/pipermail/fitsbits/2012-June/002367.html
>>    <https://listmgr.nrao.edu/pipermail/fitsbits/2012-June/002367.html>),
>>    > and by Francois-Xavier Pineau (CDS) in private conversation in 2016.
>>    > The details have been filled in by Mark Taylor (Bristol).
>>    > (F-X favours a different mechanism for encoding the extended
>>    > column metadata).
>>    >
>>    > --
>>    > Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer  Physics, Bristol
>>    University, UK
>>    > m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk <mailto:m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk>
>>    +44-117-9288776 <tel:%2B44-117-9288776>
>>    http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/ <http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/%7Embt/>
>>    >
>>    > _______________________________________________
>>    > fitsbits mailing list
>>    > fitsbits at listmgr.nrao.edu <mailto:fitsbits at listmgr.nrao.edu>
>>    > https://listmgr.nrao.edu/mailman/listinfo/fitsbits
>>    <https://listmgr.nrao.edu/mailman/listinfo/fitsbits>
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>    ------------------------------
>> 
>>    Message: 3
>>    Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2017 09:45:21 -0400
>>    From: Demitri Muna <demitri.muna at gmail.com
>>    <mailto:demitri.muna at gmail.com>>
>>    To: Mark Taylor <m.b.taylor at bristol.ac.uk
>>    <mailto:m.b.taylor at bristol.ac.uk>>
>>    Cc: fitsbits at listmgr.nrao.edu <mailto:fitsbits at listmgr.nrao.edu>
>>    Subject: Re: [fitsbits] BINTABLE convention for >999 columns
>>    Message-ID: <8A1AC488-6528-4C3A-A0D2-1226C6390F21 at gmail.com
>>    <mailto:8A1AC488-6528-4C3A-A0D2-1226C6390F21 at gmail.com>>
>>    Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>> 
>>    Hi,
>> 
>>    I agree with Rob here; the simplest solution is to spread the data
>>    into two or more extensions. It's not a lot of work for the end
>>    user to concatenate the columns into a single data structure if
>>    that is preferable for some reason. Creating a new convention that
>>    is not part of the FITS standard *does* create a lot of work for
>>    many people. While you may be able to create a technically valid
>>    FITS file, this proposal is not in the spirit of how FITS files
>>    are to be read. This proposal literally redefines the meaning of
>>    the mandatory "TFIELDS" header from the "number of columns in the
>>    table" to "number of columns in the table, except if there are
>>    other keywords, then in that case look elsewhere for this
>>    information".
>> 
>>    On Jul 7, 2017, at 7:09 AM, Mark Taylor <m.b.taylor at bristol.ac.uk
>>    <mailto:m.b.taylor at bristol.ac.uk>> wrote:
>> 
>>    > I'm posting the details here in case people want to comment,
>>    > or point out some major problem with the idea that I might have
>>    > overlooked, or tell me that there's already a convention for
>>    > this out there that I should be using instead. Otherwise, please
>>    > feel free to ignore this post.  I'm not requesting that any
>>    > other software implements this, though if anyone wants to I
>>    > certainly don't object.
>> 
>>    I don't think it's as simple as that. It's one thing to implement
>>    this in the software you support, but there are other FITS
>>    viewers/readers (Astropy and cfitsio being the main ones, whatever
>>    IDL routines there are, not to mention Nightlight). I think it
>>    would be wrong for the other programs to implement this without it
>>    being part of the standard, and I think it's a bad idea to fork
>>    the standard with a custom implementation. Feelings about
>>    standards aside, this provides for a bad user experience. It's a
>>    legitimate question/frustration for a user to wonder why some
>>    columns appear in one program and not many others, especially when
>>    the file claims to be a FITS file.
>> 
>>    I agree that there are limitations in the FITS format, but I
>>    strongly suggest that the only way forward for this idea is to
>>    propose it (or something similar) as part of the official FITS
>>    format or else use multiple extensions.
>> 
>>    Cheers,
>>    Demitri
>> 
>> 
>>    http://nightlightapp.io
>> 
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>>    End of fitsbits Digest, Vol 117, Issue 1
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