C. CFITSIO Error Status Codes

The following table lists all the error status codes used by CFITSIO. Programmers are encouraged to use the symbolic mnemonics (defined in the file fitsio.h) rather than the actual integer status values to improve the readability of their code.

 Symbolic Const    Value     Meaning
 --------------    -----  -----------------------------------------
                     0    OK, no error
 SAME_FILE         101    input and output files are the same
 TOO_MANY_FILES    103    tried to open too many FITS files at once
 FILE_NOT_OPENED   104    could not open the named file
 FILE_NOT_CREATED  105    could not create the named file
 WRITE_ERROR       106    error writing to FITS file
 END_OF_FILE       107    tried to move past end of file
 READ_ERROR        108    error reading from FITS file
 FILE_NOT_CLOSED   110    could not close the file
 ARRAY_TOO_BIG     111    array dimensions exceed internal limit
 READONLY_FILE     112    Cannot write to readonly file
 MEMORY_ALLOCATION 113    Could not allocate memory
 BAD_FILEPTR       114    invalid fitsfile pointer
 NULL_INPUT_PTR    115    NULL input pointer to routine
 SEEK_ERROR        116    error seeking position in file
 BAD_NETTIMEOUT    117    bad value for file download timeout setting

 BAD_URL_PREFIX     121   invalid URL prefix on file name
 TOO_MANY_DRIVERS   122   tried to register too many IO drivers
 DRIVER_INIT_FAILED 123   driver initialization failed
 NO_MATCHING_DRIVER 124   matching driver is not registered
 URL_PARSE_ERROR    125   failed to parse input file URL
 RANGE_PARSE_ERROR  126   parse error in range list

 SHARED_BADARG     151    bad argument in shared memory driver
 SHARED_NULPTR     152    null pointer passed as an argument
 SHARED_TABFULL    153    no more free shared memory handles
 SHARED_NOTINIT    154    shared memory driver is not initialized
 SHARED_IPCERR     155    IPC error returned by a system call
 SHARED_NOMEM      156    no memory in shared memory driver
 SHARED_AGAIN      157    resource deadlock would occur
 SHARED_NOFILE     158    attempt to open/create lock file failed
 SHARED_NORESIZE   159    shared memory block cannot be resized at the moment

 HEADER_NOT_EMPTY  201    header already contains keywords
 KEY_NO_EXIST      202    keyword not found in header
 KEY_OUT_BOUNDS    203    keyword record number is out of bounds
 VALUE_UNDEFINED   204    keyword value field is blank
 NO_QUOTE          205    string is missing the closing quote
 BAD_INDEX_KEY     206    illegal indexed keyword name (e.g. 'TFORM1000')
 BAD_KEYCHAR       207    illegal character in keyword name or card
 BAD_ORDER         208    required keywords out of order
 NOT_POS_INT       209    keyword value is not a positive integer
 NO_END            210    couldn't find END keyword
 BAD_BITPIX        211    illegal BITPIX keyword value
 BAD_NAXIS         212    illegal NAXIS keyword value
 BAD_NAXES         213    illegal NAXISn keyword value
 BAD_PCOUNT        214    illegal PCOUNT keyword value
 BAD_GCOUNT        215    illegal GCOUNT keyword value
 BAD_TFIELDS       216    illegal TFIELDS keyword value
 NEG_WIDTH         217    negative table row size
 NEG_ROWS          218    negative number of rows in table
 COL_NOT_FOUND     219    column with this name not found in table
 BAD_SIMPLE        220    illegal value of SIMPLE keyword
 NO_SIMPLE         221    Primary array doesn't start with SIMPLE
 NO_BITPIX         222    Second keyword not BITPIX
 NO_NAXIS          223    Third keyword not NAXIS
 NO_NAXES          224    Couldn't find all the NAXISn keywords
 NO_XTENSION       225    HDU doesn't start with XTENSION keyword
 NOT_ATABLE        226    the CHDU is not an ASCII table extension
 NOT_BTABLE        227    the CHDU is not a binary table extension
 NO_PCOUNT         228    couldn't find PCOUNT keyword
 NO_GCOUNT         229    couldn't find GCOUNT keyword
 NO_TFIELDS        230    couldn't find TFIELDS keyword
 NO_TBCOL          231    couldn't find TBCOLn keyword
 NO_TFORM          232    couldn't find TFORMn keyword
 NOT_IMAGE         233    the CHDU is not an IMAGE extension
 BAD_TBCOL         234    TBCOLn keyword value < 0 or > rowlength
 NOT_TABLE         235    the CHDU is not a table
 COL_TOO_WIDE      236    column is too wide to fit in table
 COL_NOT_UNIQUE    237    more than 1 column name matches template
 BAD_ROW_WIDTH     241    sum of column widths not = NAXIS1
 UNKNOWN_EXT       251    unrecognizable FITS extension type
 UNKNOWN_REC       252    unknown record; 1st keyword not SIMPLE or XTENSION
 END_JUNK          253    END keyword is not blank
 BAD_HEADER_FILL   254    Header fill area contains non-blank chars
 BAD_DATA_FILL     255    Illegal data fill bytes (not zero or blank)
 BAD_TFORM         261    illegal TFORM format code
 BAD_TFORM_DTYPE   262    unrecognizable TFORM data type code
 BAD_TDIM          263    illegal TDIMn keyword value
 BAD_HEAP_PTR      264    invalid BINTABLE heap pointer is out of range

 BAD_HDU_NUM       301    HDU number < 1
 BAD_COL_NUM       302    column number < 1 or > tfields
 NEG_FILE_POS      304    tried to move to negative byte location in file
 NEG_BYTES         306    tried to read or write negative number of bytes
 BAD_ROW_NUM       307    illegal starting row number in table
 BAD_ELEM_NUM      308    illegal starting element number in vector
 NOT_ASCII_COL     309    this is not an ASCII string column
 NOT_LOGICAL_COL   310    this is not a logical data type column
 BAD_ATABLE_FORMAT 311    ASCII table column has wrong format
 BAD_BTABLE_FORMAT 312    Binary table column has wrong format
 NO_NULL           314    null value has not been defined
 NOT_VARI_LEN      317    this is not a variable length column
 BAD_DIMEN         320    illegal number of dimensions in array
 BAD_PIX_NUM       321    first pixel number greater than last pixel
 ZERO_SCALE        322    illegal BSCALE or TSCALn keyword = 0
 NEG_AXIS          323    illegal axis length < 1

 NOT_GROUP_TABLE       340   Grouping function error
 HDU_ALREADY_MEMBER    341
 MEMBER_NOT_FOUND      342
 GROUP_NOT_FOUND       343
 BAD_GROUP_ID          344
 TOO_MANY_HDUS_TRACKED 345
 HDU_ALREADY_TRACKED   346
 BAD_OPTION            347
 IDENTICAL_POINTERS    348
 BAD_GROUP_ATTACH      349
 BAD_GROUP_DETACH      350

 NGP_NO_MEMORY         360     malloc failed
 NGP_READ_ERR          361     read error from file
 NGP_NUL_PTR           362     null pointer passed as an argument.
                                 Passing null pointer as a name of
                                 template file raises this error
 NGP_EMPTY_CURLINE     363     line read seems to be empty (used
                                 internally)
 NGP_UNREAD_QUEUE_FULL 364     cannot unread more then 1 line (or single
                                 line twice)
 NGP_INC_NESTING       365     too deep include file nesting (infinite
                                 loop, template includes itself ?)
 NGP_ERR_FOPEN         366     fopen() failed, cannot open template file
 NGP_EOF               367     end of file encountered and not expected
 NGP_BAD_ARG           368     bad arguments passed. Usually means
                                 internal parser error. Should not happen
 NGP_TOKEN_NOT_EXPECT  369     token not expected here

 BAD_I2C           401    bad int to formatted string conversion
 BAD_F2C           402    bad float to formatted string conversion
 BAD_INTKEY        403    can't interpret keyword value as integer
 BAD_LOGICALKEY    404    can't interpret keyword value as logical
 BAD_FLOATKEY      405    can't interpret keyword value as float
 BAD_DOUBLEKEY     406    can't interpret keyword value as double
 BAD_C2I           407    bad formatted string to int conversion
 BAD_C2F           408    bad formatted string to float conversion
 BAD_C2D           409    bad formatted string to double conversion
 BAD_DATATYPE      410    illegal datatype code value
 BAD_DECIM         411    bad number of decimal places specified
 NUM_OVERFLOW      412    overflow during data type conversion
 DATA_COMPRESSION_ERR   413  error compressing image
 DATA_DECOMPRESSION_ERR 414  error uncompressing image

 BAD_DATE          420    error in date or time conversion

 PARSE_SYNTAX_ERR  431    syntax error in parser expression
 PARSE_BAD_TYPE    432    expression did not evaluate to desired type
 PARSE_LRG_VECTOR  433    vector result too large to return in array
 PARSE_NO_OUTPUT   434    data parser failed not sent an out column
 PARSE_BAD_COL     435    bad data encounter while parsing column
 PARSE_BAD_OUTPUT  436    Output file not of proper type

 ANGLE_TOO_BIG     501    celestial angle too large for projection
 BAD_WCS_VAL       502    bad celestial coordinate or pixel value
 WCS_ERROR         503    error in celestial coordinate calculation
 BAD_WCS_PROJ      504    unsupported type of celestial projection
 NO_WCS_KEY        505    celestial coordinate keywords not found
 APPROX_WCS_KEY    506    approximate wcs keyword values were returned