[fitsbits] Keywords "explicitly declared ... long-string"? {External}

[Barrett, Paul]

My understanding of this sentence is that you cannot use long-string values
with mandatory or reserved keywords unless they are explicitly declared as
such. Currently, no mandatory or reserved keywords have such a declaration.
I don't think it means that FITS plans to implement keywords having more
than 8 characters. The Hierarch keyword covers this situation.

 -- Paul

On Tue, Feb 25, 2025 at 1:49 AM Dubois-Felsmann, Gregory P. via fitsbits <
fitsbits at listmgr.nrao.edu> wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
>
> FITS 4.00, §4.2.1.2 "Continued string (long-string) keywords" contains the
> statement:
>
> "The CONTINUE keyword must not be used with of [sic] any of the mandatory
> or reserved keywords defined in this Standard unless explicitly declared of
> type long-string."
>
> I have looked moderately diligently through the whole of FITS 4..00 as
> well as https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/fcg/standard_dict.html and I
> cannot find an instance of a keyword "declared of type long-string".
>
> Was this sentence included as groundwork for the possible future
> introduction of keywords declared as long-string?  Or to support projects
> that wish to declare keywords of their own as long-string?  Or was it
> intended to actually be used for some particular keyword(s) in the
> standard, but with that intent withdrawn before 4.00 actually appeared?
>
> This is not a theoretical question; we are working on polishing our
> standards-compliance in both Rubin and SPHEREx prior to the release of data
> to users later this year.
>
> Many thanks,
> Gregory
>
> --
> Gregory Dubois-Felsmann, Ph.D. | Senior Staff Scientist | Caltech/IPAC
> Science Platform Scientist, Vera C. Rubin Observatory
> Pipeline System Designer, NASA SPHEREx mission
> Mail Code MR 100-22 | Pasadena, CA 91125-2200 | gpdf at ipac.caltech.edu
>
>
>
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-- 
Paul Barrett, PhD
Department of Physics
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
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