[fitsbits] BINTABLE convention for >999 columns

[Mark Taylor]

On Fri, 28 Jul 2017, Peter Weilbacher wrote:

> Hi Mark,
> 
> On Fri, 28 Jul 2017, Mark Taylor wrote:
> 
> > and the example header looks identical to my original example up
> > to TFORM999, but the remaining entries differ:
> >
> >    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
> >    HIERARCH XT TTYPE999         = 'var_min_u_2' / label for column 999
> >    HIERARCH XT TFORM999         = 'D' / format for column 999
> >    HIERARCH XT TUNIT999         = 'counts/s' / units for column 999
> >    HIERARCH XT TTYPE1000        = 'var_prob_h_2' / label for column 1000
> >    HIERARCH XT TFORM1000        = 'D' / format for column 1000
> >     ...
> >    HIERARCH XT TTYPE1203        = 'var_prob_w_2' / label for column 1203
> >    HIERARCH XT TFORM1203        = 'D' / format for column 1203
> >    HIERARCH XT TTYPE1204        = 'var_sigma_w_2' / label for column 1204
> >    HIERARCH XT TFORM1204        = 'D' / format for column 1204
> >    HIERARCH XT TUNIT1204        = 'counts/s' / units for column 1204
> >    END
> 
> Just curious: why are there extra spaces between the hierarch keyword
> name and the equal sign? In the FITS files that I'm dealing with on a
> daily basis (coming from ESO), " = " is directly following the keyword.

These records were formatted by (an ancient version of) the java
nom.tam.fits library, so that's a question for Tom McGlynn or
possibly Richard van Nieuwenhoven.  I think I noticed during my
experiments that the library is smart enough to collapse that whitespace
if the characters are needed for keyword values.  But in any case,
it's not important - the details of the whitespace arrangement are
certainly not part of what I'm discussing here.

Mark

--
Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk +44-117-9288776  http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/