quick/ 0040755 0000564 0000036 00000000000 10377152062 010764 5 ustar pence lhea quick/index.html 0100644 0000564 0000461 00000007607 10377152062 012770 0 ustar pence asca
William Pence 1
January 2003
This document is intended to help you quickly start writing C programs to read and write FITS files using the CFITSIO library. It covers the most important CFITSIO routines that are needed to perform most types of operations on FITS files. For more complete information about these and all the other available routines in the library please refer to the ``CFITSIO User's Reference Guide'', which is available from the CFITSIO Web site at http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fitsio.
For more general information about the FITS data format, refer to the following web page: http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/fits.html
FITS stands for Flexible Image Transport System and is the standard file format used to store most astronomical data files. There are 2 basic types of FITS files: images and tables. FITS images often contain a 2-dimensional array of pixels representing an image of a piece of the sky, but FITS images can also contain 1-D arrays (i.e, a spectrum or light curve), or 3-D arrays (a data cube), or even higher dimensional arrays of data. An image may also have zero dimensions, in which case it is referred to as a null or empty array. The supported datatypes for the image arrays are 8, 16, and 32-bit integers, and 32 and 64-bit floating point real numbers. Both signed and unsigned integers are supported.
FITS tables contain rows and columns of data, similar to a spreadsheet. All the values in a particular column must have the same datatype. A cell of a column is not restricted to a single number, and instead can contain an array or vector of numbers. There are actually 2 subtypes of FITS tables: ASCII and binary. As the names imply, ASCII tables store the data values in an ASCII representation whereas binary tables store the data values in a more efficient machine-readable binary format. Binary tables are generally more compact and support more features (e.g., a wider range of datatypes, and vector columns) than ASCII tables.
A single FITS file many contain multiple images or tables. Each table or image is called a Header-Data Unit, or HDU. The first HDU in a FITS file must be an image (but it may have zero axes) and is called the Primary Array. Any additional HDUs in the file (which are also referred to as `extensions') may contain either an image or a table.
Every HDU contains a header containing keyword records. Each keyword record is 80 ASCII characters long and has the following format:
KEYWORD = value / comment string
The keyword name can be up to 8 characters long (all uppercase). The value can be either an integer or floating point number, a logical value (T or F), or a character string enclosed in single quotes. Each header begins with a series of required keywords to describe the datatype and format of the following data unit, if any. Any number of other optional keywords can be included in the header to provide other descriptive information about the data. For the most part, the CFITSIO routines automatically write the required FITS keywords for each HDU, so you, the programmer, usually do not need to worry about them.
First, you should download the CFITSIO software and the set of example FITS utility programs from the web site at http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fitsio. The example programs illustrate how to perform many common types of operations on FITS files using CFITSIO. They are also useful when writing a new program because it is often easier to take a copy of one of these utility programs as a template and then modify it for your own purposes, rather than writing the new program completely from scratch.
To build the CFITSIO library on Unix platforms, `untar' the source code distribution file and then execute the following commands in the directory containing the source code:
> ./configure [--prefix=/target/installation/path] > make (or 'make shared') > make install (this step is optional)
The optional 'prefix' argument to configure gives the path to the directory where the CFITSIO library and include files should be installed via the later 'make install' command. For example,
> ./configure --prefix=/usr1/local
will cause the 'make install' command to copy the CFITSIO libcfitsio file to /usr1/local/lib and the necessary include files to /usr1/local/include (assuming of course that the process has permission to write to these directories).
Pre-compiled versions of the CFITSIO DLL library are available for PCs. On Macintosh machines, refer to the README.MacOS file for instructions on building CFITSIO using CodeWarrior.
Any programs that use CFITSIO must of course be linked with the CFITSIO library when creating the executable file. The exact procedure for linking a program depends on your software environment, but on Unix platforms, the command line to compile and link a program will look something like this:
gcc -o myprog myprog.c -L. -lcfitsio -lm -lnsl -lsocket
You may not need to include all of the 'm', 'nsl', and 'socket' system libraries on your particular machine. To find out what libraries are required on your (Unix) system, type 'make testprog' and see what libraries are then included on the resulting link line.
Before describing the individual CFITSIO routines in detail, it is instructive to first look at an actual program. The names of the CFITSIO routines are fairly descriptive (they all begin with fits_, so it should be reasonably clear what this program does:
---------------------------------------------------------------- #include <string.h> #include <stdio.h> 1: #include "fitsio.h" int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { 2: fitsfile *fptr; char card[FLEN_CARD]; 3: int status = 0, nkeys, ii; /* MUST initialize status */ 4: fits_open_file(&fptr, argv[1], READONLY, &status); fits_get_hdrspace(fptr, &nkeys, NULL, &status); for (ii = 1; ii <= nkeys; ii++) { fits_read_record(fptr, ii, card, &status); /* read keyword */ printf("%s\n", card); } printf("END\n\n"); /* terminate listing with END */ fits_close_file(fptr, &status); if (status) /* print any error messages */ 5: fits_report_error(stderr, status); return(status); } ----------------------------------------------------------------
This program opens the specified FITS file and prints out all the header keywords in the current HDU. Some other points to notice about the program are:
The fitsfile parameter is the first argument in almost every CFITSIO routine. It is a pointer to a structure (defined in fitsio.h) that stores information about the particular FITS file that the routine will operate on. Memory for this structure is automatically allocated when the file is first opened or created, and is freed when the file is closed.
In this example program the file name to be opened is given as an argument on the command line (arg[1]). If the file contains more than 1 HDU or extension, you can specify which particular HDU to be opened by enclosing the name or number of the HDU in square brackets following the root name of the file. For example, file.fts[0] opens the primary array, while file.fts[2] will move to and open the 2nd extension in the file, and file.fit[EVENTS] will open the extension that has a EXTNAME = 'EVENTS' keyword in the header. Note that on the Unix command line you must enclose the file name in single or double quote characters if the name contains special characters such as `[' or `]'.
All of the CFITSIO routines which read or write header keywords, image data, or table data operate only within the currently opened HDU in the file. To read or write information in a different HDU you must first explicitly move to that HDU (see the fits_movabs_hdu and fits_movrel_hdu routines in section 4.3).
The fits_report_error routine provides a convenient way to print out diagnostic messages about any error that may have occurred.
A set of example FITS utility programs are available from the CFITSIO
web site at
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/fitsio/cexamples.html.
These are real working programs which illustrate how to read, write,
and modify FITS files using the CFITSIO library. Most of these
programs are very short, containing only a few 10s of lines of
executable code or less, yet they perform quite useful operations on
FITS files. Running each program without any command line arguments
will produce a short description of how to use the program.
The currently available programs are:
fitscopy - copy a file
listhead - list header keywords
liststruc - show the structure of a FITS file.
modhead - write or modify a header keyword
imarith - add, subtract, multiply, or divide 2 images
imlist - list pixel values in an image
imstat - compute mean, min, and max pixel values in an image
tablist - display the contents of a FITS table
tabcalc - general table calculator
This chapter describes the main CFITSIO routines that can be used to perform the most common types of operations on FITS files.
void fits_report_error(FILE *stream, int status) void fits_get_errstatus(int status, char *err_text) float fits_get_version(float *version)
The first routine prints out information about any error that has occurred. Whenever any CFITSIO routine encounters an error it usually writes a message describing the nature of the error to an internal error message stack and then returns with a positive integer status value. Passing the error status value to this routine will cause a generic description of the error and all the messages from the internal CFITSIO error stack to be printed to the specified stream. The stream parameter is usually set equal to "stdout" or "stderr".
The second routine simply returns a 30-character descriptive error message corresponding to the input status value.
The last routine returns the current CFITSIO library version number.
int fits_open_file( fitsfile **fptr, char *filename, int mode, int *status) int fits_open_data( fitsfile **fptr, char *filename, int mode, int *status) int fits_open_table(fitsfile **fptr, char *filename, int mode, int *status) int fits_open_image(fitsfile **fptr, char *filename, int mode, int *status) int fits_create_file(fitsfile **fptr, char *filename, int *status) int fits_close_file(fitsfile *fptr, int *status)
These routines open or close a file. The first fitsfile parameter in these and nearly every other CFITSIO routine is a pointer to a structure that CFITSIO uses to store relevant parameters about each opened file. You should never directly read or write any information in this structure. Memory for this structure is allocated automatically when the file is opened or created, and is freed when the file is closed.
The mode parameter in the fits_open_xxxx set of routines can be set to either READONLY or READWRITE to select the type of file access that will be allowed. These symbolic constants are defined in fitsio.h.
The fits_open_file routine opens the file and positions the internal file pointer to the beginning of the file, or to the specified extension if an extension name or number is appended to the file name (see the later section on ``CFITSIO File Names and Filters'' for a description of the syntax). fits_open_data behaves similarly except that it will move to the first HDU containing significant data if a HDU name or number to open is not explicitly specified as part of the filename. It will move to the first IMAGE HDU with NAXIS greater than 0, or the first table that does not contain the strings `GTI' (a Good Time Interval extension) or `OBSTABLE' in the EXTNAME keyword value. The fits_open_table and fits_open_image routines are similar except that they will move to the first significant table HDU or image HDU, respectively if a HDU name of number is not specified as part of the input file name.
When opening an existing file, the filename can include optional arguments, enclosed in square brackets that specify filtering operations that should be applied to the input file. For example,
myfile.fit[EVENTS][counts > 0]opens the table in the EVENTS extension and creates a virtual table by selecting only those rows where the COUNTS column value is greater than 0. See section 5 for more examples of these powerful filtering capabilities.
In fits_create_file, the filename is simply the root name of
the file to be created. You can overwrite an existing file by
prefixing the name with a `!' character (on the Unix command line this
must be prefixed with a backslash, as in `\!file.fit'
).
If the file name ends with .gz the file will be compressed
using the gzip algorithm. If the
filename is stdout or "-" (a single dash character)
then the output file will be piped to the stdout stream. You can
chain several tasks together by writing the output from the first task
to stdout and then reading the input file in the 2nd task from
stdin or "-".
The routines listed in this section operate on Header-Data Units (HDUs) in a file.
_______________________________________________________________ int fits_get_num_hdus(fitsfile *fptr, int *hdunum, int *status) int fits_get_hdu_num(fitsfile *fptr, int *hdunum)
The first routines returns the total number of HDUs in the FITS file, and the second routine returns the position of the currently opened HDU in the FITS file (starting with 1, not 0).
__________________________________________________________________________ int fits_movabs_hdu(fitsfile *fptr, int hdunum, int *hdutype, int *status) int fits_movrel_hdu(fitsfile *fptr, int nmove, int *hdutype, int *status) int fits_movnam_hdu(fitsfile *fptr, int hdutype, char *extname, int extver, int *status)
These routines enable you to move to a different HDU in the file. Most of the CFITSIO functions which read or write keywords or data operate only on the currently opened HDU in the file. The first routine moves to the specified absolute HDU number in the FITS file (the first HDU = 1), whereas the second routine moves a relative number of HDUs forward or backward from the currently open HDU. The hdutype parameter returns the type of the newly opened HDU, and will be equal to one of these symbolic constant values: IMAGE_HDU, ASCII_TBL, or BINARY_TBL. hdutype may be set to NULL if it is not needed. The third routine moves to the (first) HDU that matches the input extension type, name, and version number, as given by the XTENSION, EXTNAME (or HDUNAME) and EXTVER keywords. If the input value of extver = 0, then the version number will be ignored when looking for a matching HDU.
_________________________________________________________________ int fits_get_hdu_type(fitsfile *fptr, int *hdutype, int *status)
Get the type of the current HDU in the FITS file: IMAGE_HDU, ASCII_TBL, or BINARY_TBL.
____________________________________________________________________ int fits_copy_hdu(fitsfile *infptr, fitsfile *outfptr, int morekeys, int *status) int fits_copy_file(fitsfile *infptr, fitsfile *outfptr, int previous, int current, int following, > int *status)
The first routine copies the current HDU from the FITS file associated with infptr and appends it to the end of the FITS file associated with outfptr. Space may be reserved for morekeys additional keywords in the output header. The second routine copies any HDUs previous to the current HDU, and/or the current HDU, and/or any HDUs following the current HDU, depending on the value (True or False) of previous, current, and following, respectively. For example,
fits_copy_file(infptr, outfptr, 0, 1, 1, &status);will copy the current HDU and any HDUs that follow it from the input to the output file, but it will not copy any HDUs preceding the current HDU.
This section lists the more important CFITSIO routines which operate on FITS images.
_______________________________________________________________ int fits_get_img_type(fitsfile *fptr, int *bitpix, int *status) int fits_get_img_dim( fitsfile *fptr, int *naxis, int *status) int fits_get_img_size(fitsfile *fptr, int maxdim, long *naxes, int *status) int fits_get_img_param(fitsfile *fptr, int maxdim, int *bitpix, int *naxis, long *naxes, int *status)
Get information about the currently opened image HDU. The first routine returns the datatype of the image as (defined by the BITPIX keyword), which can have the following symbolic constant values:
BYTE_IMG = 8 ( 8-bit byte pixels, 0 - 255) SHORT_IMG = 16 (16 bit integer pixels) LONG_IMG = 32 (32-bit integer pixels) FLOAT_IMG = -32 (32-bit floating point pixels) DOUBLE_IMG = -64 (64-bit floating point pixels)
The second and third routines return the number of dimensions in the image (from the NAXIS keyword), and the sizes of each dimension (from the NAXIS1, NAXIS2, etc. keywords). The last routine simply combines the function of the first 3 routines. The input maxdim parameter in this routine gives the maximum number dimensions that may be returned (i.e., the dimension of the naxes array)
__________________________________________________________ int fits_create_img(fitsfile *fptr, int bitpix, int naxis, long *naxes, int *status)
Create an image HDU by writing the required keywords which define the structure of the image. The 2nd through 4th parameters specified the datatype, the number of dimensions, and the sizes of the dimensions. The allowed values of the bitpix parameter are listed above in the description of the fits_get_img_type routine. If the FITS file pointed to by fptr is empty (previously created with fits_create_file) then this routine creates a primary array in the file, otherwise a new IMAGE extension is appended to end of the file following the other HDUs in the file.
______________________________________________________________ int fits_write_pix(fitsfile *fptr, int datatype, long *fpixel, long nelements, void *array, int *status); int fits_write_pixnull(fitsfile *fptr, int datatype, long *fpixel, long nelements, void *array, void *nulval, int *status); int fits_read_pix(fitsfile *fptr, int datatype, long *fpixel, long nelements, void *nulval, void *array, int *anynul, int *status)
Read or write all or part of the FITS image. There are 2 different 'write' pixel routines: The first simply writes the input array of pixels to the FITS file. The second is similar, except that it substitutes the appropriate null pixel value in the FITS file for any pixels which have a value equal to *nulval (note that this parameter gives the address of the null pixel value, not the value itself). Similarly, when reading an image, CFITSIO will substitute the value given by nulval for any undefined pixels in the image, unless nulval = NULL, in which case no checks will be made for undefined pixels when reading the FITS image.
The fpixel parameter in these routines is an array which gives the coordinate in each dimension of the first pixel to be read or written, and nelements is the total number of pixels to read or write. array is the address of an array which either contains the pixel values to be written, or will hold the values of the pixels that are read. When reading, array must have been allocated large enough to hold all the returned pixel values. These routines starts at the fpixel location and then read or write the nelements pixels, continuing on successive rows of the image if necessary. For example, to write an entire 2D image, set fpixel[0] = fpixel[1] = 1, and nelements = NAXIS1 * NAXIS2. Or to read just the 10th row of the image, set fpixel[0] = 1, fpixel[1] = 10, and nelements = NAXIS1. The datatype parameter specifies the datatype of the C array in the program, which need not be the same as the datatype of the FITS image itself. If the datatypes differ then CFITSIO will convert the data as it is read or written. The following symbolic constants are allowed for the value of datatype:
TBYTE unsigned char TSBYTE signed char TSHORT signed short TUSHORT unsigned short TINT signed int TUINT unsigned int TLONG signed long TLONGLONG signed 8-byte integer TULONG unsigned long TFLOAT float TDOUBLE double
_________________________________________________________________ int fits_write_subset(fitsfile *fptr, int datatype, long *fpixel, long *lpixel, DTYPE *array, > int *status) int fits_read_subset(fitsfile *fptr, int datatype, long *fpixel, long *lpixel, long *inc, void *nulval, void *array, int *anynul, int *status)
Read or write a rectangular section of the FITS image. These are very similar to fits_write_pix and fits_read_pix except that you specify the last pixel coordinate (the upper right corner of the section) instead of the number of pixels to be read. The read routine also has an inc parameter which can be used to read only every inc-th pixel along each dimension of the image. Normally inc[0] = inc[1] = 1 to read every pixel in a 2D image. To read every other pixel in the entire 2D image, set
fpixel[0] = fpixel[1] = 1 lpixel[0] = {NAXIS1} lpixel[1] = {NAXIS2} inc[0] = inc[1] = 2
Or, to read the 8th row of a 2D image, set
fpixel[0] = 1 fpixel[1] = 8 lpixel[0] = {NAXIS1} lpixel[1] = 8 inc[0] = inc[1] = 1
This section lists the most important CFITSIO routines which operate on FITS tables.
__________________________________________________________________________ int fits_create_tbl(fitsfile *fptr, int tbltype, long nrows, int tfields, char *ttype[],char *tform[], char *tunit[], char *extname, int *status)
Create a new table extension by writing the required keywords that define the table structure. The required null primary array will be created first if the file is initially completely empty. tbltype defines the type of table and can have values of ASCII_TBL or BINARY_TBL. Binary tables are generally preferred because they are more efficient and support a greater range of column datatypes than ASCII tables.
The nrows parameter gives the initial number of empty rows to be allocated for the table; this should normally be set to 0. The tfields parameter gives the number of columns in the table (maximum = 999). The ttype, tform, and tunit parameters give the name, datatype, and physical units of each column, and extname gives the name for the table (the value of the EXTNAME keyword). The FITS Standard recommends that only letters, digits, and the underscore character be used in column names with no embedded spaces. It is recommended that all the column names in a given table be unique within the first 8 characters.
The following table shows the TFORM column format values that are allowed in ASCII tables and in binary tables:
ASCII Table Column Format Codes ------------------------------- (w = column width, d = no. of decimal places to display) Aw - character string Iw - integer Fw.d - fixed floating point Ew.d - exponential floating point Dw.d - exponential floating point Binary Table Column Format Codes -------------------------------- (r = vector length, default = 1) rA - character string rAw - array of strings, each of length w rL - logical rX - bit rB - unsigned byte rS - signed byte ** rI - signed 16-bit integer rU - unsigned 16-bit integer ** rJ - signed 32-bit integer rV - unsigned 32-bit integer ** rK - 64-bit integer *** rE - 32-bit floating point rD - 64-bit floating point rC - 32-bit complex pair rM - 64-bit complex pair ** The S, U and V format codes are not actual legal TFORMn values. CFITSIO substitutes the somewhat more complicated set of keywords that are used to represent unsigned integers or signed bytes. *** The 64-bit integer format is experimental and is not officially recognized in the FITS Standard.
The tunit and extname parameters are optional and may be set to NULL if they are not needed.
Note that it may be easier to create a new table by copying the header from another existing table with fits_copy_header rather than calling this routine.
_______________________________________________________________ int fits_get_num_rows(fitsfile *fptr, long *nrows, int *status) int fits_get_num_cols(fitsfile *fptr, int *ncols, int *status)
Get the number of rows or columns in the current FITS table. The number of rows is given by the NAXIS2 keyword and the number of columns is given by the TFIELDS keyword in the header of the table.
_______________________________________________________________ int fits_get_colnum(fitsfile *fptr, int casesen, char *template, int *colnum, int *status) int fits_get_colname(fitsfile *fptr, int casesen, char *template, char *colname, int *colnum, int *status)
Get the column number (starting with 1, not 0) of the column whose name matches the specified template name. The only difference in these 2 routines is that the 2nd one also returns the name of the column that matched the template string.
Normally, casesen should be set to CASEINSEN, but it may be set to CASESEN to force the name matching to be case-sensitive.
The input template string gives the name of the desired column and may include wildcard characters: a `*' matches any sequence of characters (including zero characters), `?' matches any single character, and `#' matches any consecutive string of decimal digits (0-9). If more than one column name in the table matches the template string, then the first match is returned and the status value will be set to COL_NOT_UNIQUE as a warning that a unique match was not found. To find the next column that matches the template, call this routine again leaving the input status value equal to COL_NOT_UNIQUE. Repeat this process until status = COL_NOT_FOUND is returned.
_______________________________________________________________ int fits_get_coltype(fitsfile *fptr, int colnum, int *typecode, long *repeat, long *width, int *status) int fits_get_eqcoltype(fitsfile *fptr, int colnum, int *typecode, long *repeat, long *width, int *status)
Return the datatype, vector repeat count, and the width in bytes of a single column element for column number colnum. Allowed values for the returned datatype in ASCII tables are: TSTRING, TSHORT, TLONG, TFLOAT, and TDOUBLE. Binary tables support these additional types: TLOGICAL, TBIT, TBYTE, TINT32BIT, TCOMPLEX and TDBLCOMPLEX. The negative of the datatype code value is returned if it is a variable length array column.
These 2 routines are similar, except that in the case of scaled integer columns the 2nd routine, fit_get_eqcoltype, returns the 'equivalent' datatype that is needed to store the scaled values, which is not necessarily the same as the physical datatype of the unscaled values as stored in the FITS table. For example if a '1I' column in a binary table has TSCALn = 1 and TZEROn = 32768, then this column effectively contains unsigned short integer values, and thus the returned value of typecode will be TUSHORT, not TSHORT. Or, if TSCALn or TZEROn are not integers, then the equivalent datatype will be returned as TFLOAT or TDOUBLE, depending on the size of the integer.
The repeat count is always 1 in ASCII tables. The 'repeat' parameter returns the vector repeat count on the binary table TFORMn keyword value. (ASCII table columns always have repeat = 1). The 'width' parameter returns the width in bytes of a single column element (e.g., a '10D' binary table column will have width = 8, an ASCII table 'F12.2' column will have width = 12, and a binary table'60A' character string column will have width = 60); Note that this routine supports the local convention for specifying arrays of fixed length strings within a binary table character column using the syntax TFORM = 'rAw' where 'r' is the total number of characters (= the width of the column) and 'w' is the width of a unit string within the column. Thus if the column has TFORM = '60A12' then this means that each row of the table contains 5 12-character substrings within the 60-character field, and thus in this case this routine will return typecode = TSTRING, repeat = 60, and width = 12. The number of substings in any binary table character string field can be calculated by (repeat/width). A null pointer may be given for any of the output parameters that are not needed.
____________________________________________________________________________ int fits_insert_rows(fitsfile *fptr, long firstrow, long nrows, int *status) int fits_delete_rows(fitsfile *fptr, long firstrow, long nrows, int *status) int fits_delete_rowrange(fitsfile *fptr, char *rangelist, int *status) int fits_delete_rowlist(fitsfile *fptr, long *rowlist, long nrows, int *stat)
Insert or delete rows in a table. The blank rows are inserted immediately following row frow. Set frow = 0 to insert rows at the beginning of the table. The first 'delete' routine deletes nrows rows beginning with row firstrow. The 2nd delete routine takes an input string listing the rows or row ranges to be deleted (e.g., '2,4-7, 9-12'). The last delete routine takes an input long integer array that specifies each individual row to be deleted. The row lists must be sorted in ascending order. All these routines update the value of the NAXIS2 keyword to reflect the new number of rows in the table.
_________________________________________________________________________ int fits_insert_col(fitsfile *fptr, int colnum, char *ttype, char *tform, int *status) int fits_insert_cols(fitsfile *fptr, int colnum, int ncols, char **ttype, char **tform, int *status) int fits_delete_col(fitsfile *fptr, int colnum, int *status)
Insert or delete columns in a table. colnum gives the position of the column to be inserted or deleted (where the first column of the table is at position 1). ttype and tform give the column name and column format, where the allowed format codes are listed above in the description of the fits_create_table routine. The 2nd 'insert' routine inserts multiple columns, where ncols is the number of columns to insert, and ttype and tform are arrays of string pointers in this case.
____________________________________________________________________ int fits_copy_col(fitsfile *infptr, fitsfile *outfptr, int incolnum, int outcolnum, int create_col, int *status);
Copy a column from one table HDU to another. If create_col = TRUE (i.e., not equal to zero), then a new column will be inserted in the output table at position outcolumn, otherwise the values in the existing output column will be overwritten.
__________________________________________________________________________ int fits_write_col(fitsfile *fptr, int datatype, int colnum, long firstrow, long firstelem, long nelements, void *array, int *status) int fits_write_colnull(fitsfile *fptr, int datatype, int colnum, long firstrow, long firstelem, long nelements, void *array, void *nulval, int *status) int fits_write_col_null(fitsfile *fptr, int colnum, long firstrow, long firstelem, long nelements, int *status) int fits_read_col(fitsfile *fptr, int datatype, int colnum, long firstrow, long firstelem, long nelements, void *nulval, void *array, int *anynul, int *status)
Write or read elements in column number colnum, starting with row firstsrow and element firstelem (if it is a vector column). firstelem is ignored if it is a scalar column. The nelements number of elements are read or written continuing on successive rows of the table if necessary. array is the address of an array which either contains the values to be written, or will hold the returned values that are read. When reading, array must have been allocated large enough to hold all the returned values.
There are 3 different 'write' column routines: The first simply writes the input array into the column. The second is similar, except that it substitutes the appropriate null pixel value in the column for any input array values which are equal to *nulval (note that this parameter gives the address of the null pixel value, not the value itself). The third write routine sets the specified table elements to a null value. New rows will be automatical added to the table if the write operation extends beyond the current size of the table.
When reading a column, CFITSIO will substitute the value given by nulval for any undefined elements in the FITS column, unless nulval or *nulval = NULL, in which case no checks will be made for undefined values when reading the column.
datatype specifies the datatype of the C array in the program, which need not be the same as the intrinsic datatype of the column in the FITS table. The following symbolic constants are allowed for the value of datatype:
TSTRING array of character string pointers TBYTE unsigned char TSHORT signed short TUSHORT unsigned short TINT signed int TUINT unsigned int TLONG signed long TLONGLONG signed 8-byte integer TULONG unsigned long TFLOAT float TDOUBLE double
Note that TSTRING corresponds to the C char** datatype, i.e., a pointer to an array of pointers to an array of characters.
Any column, regardless of it's intrinsic datatype, may be read as a TSTRING character string. The display format of the returned strings will be determined by the TDISPn keyword, if it exists, otherwise a default format will be used depending on the datatype of the column. The tablist example utility program (available from the CFITSIO web site) uses this feature to display all the values in a FITS table.
_____________________________________________________________________ int fits_select_rows(fitsfile *infptr, fitsfile *outfptr, char *expr, int *status) int fits_calculator(fitsfile *infptr, char *expr, fitsfile *outfptr, char *colname, char *tform, int *status)
These are 2 of the most powerful routines in the CFITSIO library. (See the full CFITSIO Reference Guide for a description of several related routines). These routines can perform complicated transformations on tables based on an input arithmetic expression which is evaluated for each row of the table. The first routine will select or copy rows of the table for which the expression evaluates to TRUE (i.e., not equal to zero). The second routine writes the value of the expression to a column in the output table. Rather than supplying the expression directly to these routines, the expression may also be written to a text file (continued over multiple lines if necessary) and the name of the file, prepended with a '@' character, may be supplied as the value of the 'expr' parameter (e.g. '@filename.txt').
The arithmetic expression may be a function of any column or keyword in the input table as shown in these examples:
Row Selection Expressions: counts > 0 uses COUNTS column value sqrt( X**2 + Y**2) < 10. uses X and Y column values (X > 10) || (X < -10) && (Y == 0) used 'or' and 'and' operators gtifilter() filter on Good Time Intervals regfilter("myregion.reg") filter using a region file @select.txt reads expression from a text file Calculator Expressions: #row % 10 modulus of the row number counts/#exposure Fn of COUNTS column and EXPOSURE keyword dec < 85 ? cos(dec * #deg) : 0 Conditional expression: evaluates to cos(dec) if dec < 85, else 0 (count{-1}+count+count{+1})/3. running mean of the count values in the previous, current, and next rows max(0, min(X, 1000)) returns a value between 0 - 1000 @calc.txt reads expression from a text file
Most standard mathematical operators and functions are supported. If the expression includes the name of a column, than the value in the current row of the table will be used when evaluating the expression on each row. An offset to an adjacent row can be specified by including the offset value in curly brackets after the column name as shown in one of the examples. Keyword values can be included in the expression by preceding the keyword name with a `#' sign. See Section 5 of this document for more discussion of the expression syntax.
gtifilter is a special function which tests whether the TIME column value in the input table falls within one or more Good Time Intervals. By default, this function looks for a 'GTI' extension in the same file as the input table. The 'GTI' table contains START and STOP columns which define the range of each good time interval. See section 5.4.3 for more details.
regfilter is another special function which selects rows based on whether the spatial position associated with each row is located within in a specified region of the sky. By default, the X and Y columns in the input table are assumed to give the position of each row. The spatial region is defined in an ASCII text file whose name is given as the argument to the regfilter function. See section 5.4.4 for more details.
The infptr and outfptr parameters in these routines may point to the same table or to different tables. In fits_select_rows, if the input and output tables are the same then the rows that do not satisfy the selection expression will be deleted from the table. Otherwise, if the output table is different from the input table then the selected rows will be copied from the input table to the output table.
The output column in fits_calculator may or may not already exist. If it exists then the calculated values will be written to that column, overwriting the existing values. If the column doesn't exist then the new column will be appended to the output table. The tform parameter can be used to specify the datatype of the new column (e.g., the TFORM keyword value as in '1E', or '1J'). If tform = NULL then a default datatype will be used, depending on the expression.
_____________________________________________________________________ int fits_read_tblbytes(fitsfile *fptr, long firstrow, long firstchar, long nchars, unsigned char *array, int *status) int fits_write_tblbytes (fitsfile *fptr, long firstrow, long firstchar, long nchars, unsigned char *array, int *status)
These 2 routines provide low-level access to tables and are mainly useful as an efficient way to copy rows of a table from one file to another. These routines simply read or write the specified number of consecutive characters (bytes) in a table, without regard for column boundaries. For example, to read or write the first row of a table, set firstrow = 1, firstchar = 1, and nchars = NAXIS1 where the length of a row is given by the value of the NAXIS1 header keyword. When reading a table, array must have been declared at least nchars bytes long to hold the returned string of bytes.
____________________________________________________________________ int fits_get_hdrspace(fitsfile *fptr, int *keysexist, int *morekeys, int *status)Return the number of existing keywords (not counting the mandatory END keyword) and the amount of empty space currently available for more keywords. The morekeys parameter may be set to NULL if it's value is not needed.
___________________________________________________________________________ int fits_read_record(fitsfile *fptr, int keynum, char *record, int *status) int fits_read_card(fitsfile *fptr, char *keyname, char *record, int *status) int fits_read_key(fitsfile *fptr, int datatype, char *keyname, void *value, char *comment, int *status) int fits_find_nextkey(fitsfile *fptr, char **inclist, int ninc, char **exclist, int nexc, char *card, int *status) int fits_read_key_unit(fitsfile *fptr, char *keyname, char *unit, int *status)
These routines all read a header record in the current HDU. The first routine reads keyword number keynum (where the first keyword is at position 1). This routine is most commonly used when sequentially reading every record in the header from beginning to end. The 2nd and 3rd routines read the named keyword and return either the whole record, or the keyword value and comment string. In each case any non-significant trailing blank characters in the strings are truncated.
Wild card characters (*, ?, and #) may be used when specifying the name of the keyword to be read, in which case the first matching keyword is returned.
The datatype parameter specifies the C datatype of the returned keyword value and can have one of the following symbolic constant values: TSTRING, TLOGICAL (== int), TBYTE, TSHORT, TUSHORT, TINT, TUINT, TLONG, TULONG, TFLOAT, TDOUBLE, TCOMPLEX, and TDBLCOMPLEX. Data type conversion will be performed for numeric values if the intrinsic FITS keyword value does not have the same datatype. The comment parameter may be set equal to NULL if the comment string is not needed.
The 4th routine provides an easy way to find all the keywords in the header that match one of the name templates in inclist and do not match any of the name templates in exclist. ninc and nexc are the number of template strings in inclist and exclist, respectively. Wild cards (*, ?, and #) may be used in the templates to match multiple keywords. Each time this routine is called it returns the next matching 80-byte keyword record. It returns status = KEY_NO_EXIST if there are no more matches.
The 5th routine returns the keyword value units string, if any. The units are recorded at the beginning of the keyword comment field enclosed in square brackets.
_______________________________________________________________ int fits_write_key(fitsfile *fptr, int datatype, char *keyname, void *value, char *comment, int *status) int fits_update_key(fitsfile *fptr, int datatype, char *keyname, void *value, char *comment, int *status) int fits_write_record(fitsfile *fptr, char *card, int *status) int fits_modify_comment(fitsfile *fptr, char *keyname, char *comment, int *status) int fits_write_key_unit(fitsfile *fptr, char *keyname, char *unit, int *status)
Write or modify a keyword in the header of the current HDU. The first routine appends the new keyword to the end of the header, whereas the second routine will update the value and comment fields of the keyword if it already exists, otherwise it behaves like the first routine and appends the new keyword. Note that value gives the address to the value and not the value itself. The datatype parameter specifies the C datatype of the keyword value and may have any of the values listed in the description of the keyword reading routines, above. A NULL may be entered for the comment parameter, in which case the keyword comment field will be unmodified or left blank.
The third routine is more primitive and simply writes the 80-character card record to the header. It is the programmer's responsibility in this case to ensure that the record conforms to all the FITS format requirements for a header record.
The fourth routine modifies the comment string in an existing keyword, and the last routine writes or updates the keyword units string for an existing keyword. (The units are recorded at the beginning of the keyword comment field enclosed in square brackets).
___________________________________________________________________ int fits_write_comment(fitsfile *fptr, char *comment, int *status) int fits_write_history(fitsfile *fptr, char *history, int *status) int fits_write_date(fitsfile *fptr, int *status)
Write a COMMENT, HISTORY, or DATE keyword to the current header. The COMMENT keyword is typically used to write a comment about the file or the data. The HISTORY keyword is typically used to provide information about the history of the processing procedures that have been applied to the data. The comment or history string will be continued over multiple keywords if it is more than 70 characters long.
The DATE keyword is used to record the date and time that the FITS file was created. Note that this file creation date is usually different from the date of the observation which obtained the data in the FITS file. The DATE keyword value is a character string in 'yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss' format. If a DATE keyword already exists in the header, then this routine will update the value with the current system date.
___________________________________________________________________ int fits_delete_record(fitsfile *fptr, int keynum, int *status) int fits_delete_key(fitsfile *fptr, char *keyname, int *status)
Delete a keyword record. The first routine deletes a keyword at a specified position (the first keyword is at position 1, not 0), whereas the second routine deletes the named keyword.
_______________________________________________________________________ int fits_copy_header(fitsfile *infptr, fitsfile *outfptr, int *status)
Copy all the header keywords from the current HDU associated with infptr to the current HDU associated with outfptr. If the current output HDU is not empty, then a new HDU will be appended to the output file. The output HDU will then have the identical structure as the input HDU, but will contain no data.
This section lists the most important CFITSIO general utility routines.
___________________________________________________________________ int fits_write_chksum( fitsfile *fptr, int *status) int fits_verify_chksum(fitsfile *fptr, int *dataok, int *hduok, int *status)
These routines compute or validate the checksums for the currenrt HDU. The DATASUM keyword is used to store the numerical value of the 32-bit, 1's complement checksum for the data unit alone. The CHECKSUM keyword is used to store the ASCII encoded COMPLEMENT of the checksum for the entire HDU. Storing the complement, rather than the actual checksum, forces the checksum for the whole HDU to equal zero. If the file has been modified since the checksums were computed, then the HDU checksum will usually not equal zero.
The returned dataok and hduok parameters will have a value = 1 if the data or HDU is verified correctly, a value = 0 if the DATASUM or CHECKSUM keyword is not present, or value = -1 if the computed checksum is not correct.
___________________________________________________________________ int fits_parse_value(char *card, char *value, char *comment, int *status) int fits_get_keytype(char *value, char *dtype, int *status) int fits_get_keyclass(char *card) int fits_parse_template(char *template, char *card, int *keytype, int *status)
fits_parse_value parses the input 80-chararacter header keyword record, returning the value (as a literal character string) and comment strings. If the keyword has no value (columns 9-10 not equal to '= '), then a null value string is returned and the comment string is set equal to column 9 - 80 of the input string.
fits_get_keytype parses the keyword value string to determine its datatype. dtype returns with a value of 'C', 'L', 'I', 'F' or 'X', for character string, logical, integer, floating point, or complex, respectively.
fits_get_keyclass returns a classification code that indicates the classification type of the input keyword record (e.g., a required structural keyword, a TDIM keyword, a WCS keyword, a comment keyword, etc. See the CFITSIO Reference Guide for a list of the different classification codes.
fits_parse_template takes an input free format keyword template string and returns a formatted 80*char record that satisfies all the FITS requirements for a header keyword record. The template should generally contain 3 tokens: the keyword name, the keyword value, and the keyword comment string. The returned keytype parameter indicates whether the keyword is a COMMENT keyword or not. See the CFITSIO Reference Guide for more details.
When creating a new output file on magnetic disk with fits_create_file the following features are supported.
If the filename is preceded by an exclamation point (!) then if that file already exists it will be deleted prior to creating the new FITS file. Otherwise if there is an existing file with the same name, CFITSIO will not overwrite the existing file and will return an error status code. Note that the exclamation point is a special UNIX character, so if it is used on the command line rather than entered at a task prompt, it must be preceded by a backslash to force the UNIX shell to pass it verbatim to the application program.
If the output disk file name ends with the suffix '.gz', then CFITSIO will compress the file using the gzip compression algorithm before writing it to disk. This can reduce the amount of disk space used by the file. Note that this feature requires that the uncompressed file be constructed in memory before it is compressed and written to disk, so it can fail if there is insufficient available memory.
One can also specify that any images written to the output file should be compressed using the newly developed `tile-compression' algorithm by appending `[compress]' to the name of the disk file (as in myfile.fits[compress]). Refer to the CFITSIO User's Reference Guide for more information about this new image compression format.
The structure of any new FITS file that is to be created may be defined in an ASCII template file. If the name of the template file is appended to the name of the FITS file itself, enclosed in parenthesis (e.g., 'newfile.fits(template.txt)') then CFITSIO will create a FITS file with that structure before opening it for the application to use. The template file basically defines the dimensions and data type of the primary array and any IMAGE extensions, and the names and data types of the columns in any ASCII or binary table extensions. The template file can also be used to define any optional keywords that should be written in any of the HDU headers. The image pixel values and table entry values are all initialized to zero. The application program can then write actual data into the HDUs. See the CFITSIO Reference Guide for for a complete description of the template file syntax.
It is sometimes useful to create a temporary output file when testing an application program. If the name of the file to be created is specified as mem: then CFITSIO will create the file in memory where it will persist only until the program closes the file. Use of this mem: output file usually enables the program to run faster, and of course the output file does not use up any disk space.
When opening a file with fits_open_file, CFITSIO can read a variety of different input file formats and is not restricted to only reading FITS format files from magnetic disk. The following types of input files are all supported:
If CFITSIO cannot find the specified file to open it will automatically look for a file with the same rootname but with a .gz, .zip, or .Z extension. If it finds such a compressed file, it will allocate a block of memory and uncompress the file into that memory space. The application program will then transparently open this virtual FITS file in memory. Compressed files can only be opened with 'readonly', not 'readwrite' file access.
Simply provide the full URL as the name of the file that you want to
open. For example,
ftp://legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov/software/fitsio/c/testprog.std
will open the CFITSIO test FITS file that is located on the legacy machine. These files can only be opened with 'readonly' file
access.
If the name of the file to be opened is 'stdin' or '-' (a single dash character) then CFITSIO will read the file from the standard input stream. Similarly, if the output file name is 'stdout' or '-', then the file will be written to the standard output stream. In addition, if the output filename is 'stdout.gz' or '-.gz' then it will be gzip compressed before being written to stdout. This mechanism can be used to pipe FITS files from one task to another without having to write an intermediary FITS file on magnetic disk.
In some applications, such as real time data acquisition, you may want to have one process write a FITS file into a certain section of computer memory, and then be able to open that file in memory with another process. There is a specialized CFITSIO open routine called fits_open_memfile that can be used for this purpose. See the ``CFITSIO User's Reference Guide'' for more details.
CFITSIO supports reading IRAF format images by converting them on the fly into FITS images in memory. The application program then reads this virtual FITS format image in memory. There is currently no support for writing IRAF format images, or for reading or writing IRAF tables.
If the input file is a raw binary data array, then CFITSIO will convert it on the fly into a virtual FITS image with the basic set of required header keywords before it is opened by the application program. In this case the data type and dimensions of the image must be specified in square brackets following the filename (e.g. rawfile.dat[ib512,512]). The first character inside the brackets defines the datatype of the array:
b 8-bit unsigned byte i 16-bit signed integer u 16-bit unsigned integer j 32-bit signed integer r or f 32-bit floating point d 64-bit floating pointAn optional second character specifies the byte order of the array values: b or B indicates big endian (as in FITS files and the native format of SUN UNIX workstations and Mac PCs) and l or L indicates little endian (native format of DEC OSF workstations and IBM PCs). If this character is omitted then the array is assumed to have the native byte order of the local machine. These datatype characters are then followed by a series of one or more integer values separated by commas which define the size of each dimension of the raw array. Arrays with up to 5 dimensions are currently supported.
Finally, a byte offset to the position of the first pixel in the data file may be specified by separating it with a ':' from the last dimension value. If omitted, it is assumed that the offset = 0. This parameter may be used to skip over any header information in the file that precedes the binary data. Further examples:
raw.dat[b10000] 1-dimensional 10000 pixel byte array raw.dat[rb400,400,12] 3-dimensional floating point big-endian array img.fits[ib512,512:2880] reads the 512 x 512 short integer array in a FITS file, skipping over the 2880 byte header
When specifying the name of an image to be opened, you can select a rectangular subsection of the image to be extracted and opened by the application program. The application program then opens a virtual image that only contains the pixels within the specified subsection. To do this, specify the the range of pixels (start:end) along each axis to be extracted from the original image enclosed in square brackets. You can also specify an optional pixel increment (start:end:step) for each axis of the input image. A pixel step = 1 will be assumed if it is not specified. If the starting pixel is larger then the end pixel, then the image will be flipped (producing a mirror image) along that dimension. An asterisk, '*', may be used to specify the entire range of an axis, and '-*' will flip the entire axis. In the following examples, assume that myfile.fits contains a 512 x 512 pixel 2D image.
myfile.fits[201:210, 251:260] - opens a 10 x 10 pixel subimage. myfile.fits[*, 512:257] - opens a 512 x 256 image consisting of all the columns in the input image, but only rows 257 through 512. The image will be flipped along the Y axis since the starting row is greater than the ending row. myfile.fits[*:2, 512:257:2] - creates a 256 x 128 pixel image. Similar to the previous example, but only every other row and column is read from the input image. myfile.fits[-*, *] - creates an image containing all the rows and columns in the input image, but flips it along the X axis.
If the array to be opened is in an Image extension, and not in the primary array of the file, then you need to specify the extension name or number in square brackets before giving the subsection range, as in myfile.fits[1][-*, *] to read the image in the first extension in the file.
You can also create and open a virtual image by binning the values in a pair of columns of a FITS table (in other words, create a 2-D histogram of the values in the 2 columns). This technique is often used in X-ray astronomy where each detected X-ray photon during an observation is recorded in a FITS table. There are typically 2 columns in the table called X and Y which record the pixel location of that event in a virtual 2D image. To create an image from this table, one just scans the X and Y columns and counts up how many photons were recorded in each pixel of the image. When table binning is specified, CFITSIO creates a temporary FITS primary array in memory by computing the histogram of the values in the specified columns. After the histogram is computed the original FITS file containing the table is closed and the temporary FITS primary array is opened and passed to the application program. Thus, the application program never sees the original FITS table and only sees the image in the new temporary file (which has no extensions).
The table binning specifier is enclosed in square brackets following
the root filename and table extension name or number and begins with
the keyword 'bin', as in:
'myfile.fits[events][bin (X,Y)]'. In
this case, the X and Y columns in the 'events' table extension are
binned up to create the image. The size of the image is usually
determined by the TLMINn and TLMAXn header keywords which
give the minimum and maximum allowed pixel values in the columns. For
instance if TLMINn = 1 and TLMAXn = 4096 for both columns, this would
generate a 4096 x 4096 pixel image by default. This is rather large,
so you can also specify a pixel binning factor to reduce the image
size. For example specifying , '[bin (X,Y) = 16]' will use a
binning factor of 16, which will produce a 256 x 256 pixel image in the
previous example.
If the TLMIN and TLMAX keywords don't exist, or you want to override their values, you can specify the image range and binning factor directly, as in '[bin X = 1:4096:16, Y=1:4096:16]'. You can also specify the datatype of the created image by appending a b, i, j, r, or d (for 8-bit byte, 16-bit integers, 32-bit integer, 32-bit floating points, or 64-bit double precision floating point, respectively) to the 'bin' keyword (e.g. '[binr (X,Y)]' creates a floating point image). If the datatype is not specified then a 32-bit integer image will be created by default.
If the column name is not specified, then CFITSIO will first try to use the 'preferred column' as specified by the CPREF keyword if it exists (e.g., 'CPREF = 'DETX,DETY'), otherwise column names 'X', 'Y' will be assumed for the 2 axes.
Note that this binning specifier is not restricted to only 2D images and can be used to create 1D, 3D, or 4D images as well. It is also possible to specify a weighting factor that is applied during the binning. Please refer to the ``CFITSIO User's Reference Guide'' for more details on these advanced features.
The column or keyword filtering specifier is used to modify the column structure and/or the header keywords in the HDU that was selected with the previous HDU location specifier. It can be used to perform the following types of operations.
The column filtering specifier is enclosed in square brackets and begins with the string 'col'. Multiple operations can be performed by separating them with semi-colons. For complex or commonly used operations, you can write the column filter to a text file, and then use it by giving the name of the text file, preceded by a '@' character.
Some examples:
[col PI=PHA * 1.1 + 0.2] - creates new PI column from PHA values [col rate = counts/exposure] - creates or overwrites the rate column by dividing the counts column by the EXPOSURE keyword value. [col TIME; X; Y] - only the listed columns will appear in the filtered file [col Time;*raw] - include the Time column and any other columns whose name ends with 'raw'. [col -TIME; Good == STATUS] - deletes the TIME column and renames the STATUS column to GOOD [col @colfilt.txt] - uses the filtering expression in the colfilt.txt text file
The original file is not changed by this filtering operation, and instead the modifications are made on a temporary copy of the input FITS file (usually in memory), which includes a copy of all the other HDUs in the input file. The original input file is closed and the application program opens the filtered copy of the file.
The row filter is used to select a subset of the rows from a table based on a boolean expression. A temporary new FITS file is created on the fly (usually in memory) which contains only those rows for which the row filter expression evaluates to true (i.e., not equal to zero). The primary array and any other extensions in the input file are also copied to the temporary file. The original FITS file is closed and the new temporary file is then opened by the application program.
The row filter expression is enclosed in square brackets following the file name and extension name. For example, 'file.fits[events][GRADE==50]' selects only those rows in the EVENTS table where the GRADE column value is equal to 50).
The row filtering expression can be an arbitrarily complex series of operations performed on constants, keyword values, and column data taken from the specified FITS TABLE extension. The expression also can be written into a text file and then used by giving the filename preceded by a '@' character, as in '[@rowfilt.txt]'.
Keyword and column data are referenced by name. Any string of characters not surrounded by quotes (ie, a constant string) or followed by an open parentheses (ie, a function name) will be initially interpreted as a column name and its contents for the current row inserted into the expression. If no such column exists, a keyword of that name will be searched for and its value used, if found. To force the name to be interpreted as a keyword (in case there is both a column and keyword with the same name), precede the keyword name with a single pound sign, '#', as in #NAXIS2. Due to the generalities of FITS column and keyword names, if the column or keyword name contains a space or a character which might appear as an arithmetic term then inclose the name in '$' characters as in $MAX PHA$ or #$MAX-PHA$. The names are case insensitive.
To access a table entry in a row other than the current one, follow the column's name with a row offset within curly braces. For example, 'PHA{-3}' will evaluate to the value of column PHA, 3 rows above the row currently being processed. One cannot specify an absolute row number, only a relative offset. Rows that fall outside the table will be treated as undefined, or NULLs.
Boolean operators can be used in the expression in either their Fortran or C forms. The following boolean operators are available:
"equal" .eq. .EQ. == "not equal" .ne. .NE. != "less than" .lt. .LT. < "less than/equal" .le. .LE. <= =< "greater than" .gt. .GT. > "greater than/equal" .ge. .GE. >= => "or" .or. .OR. || "and" .and. .AND. && "negation" .not. .NOT. ! "approx. equal(1e-7)" ~
Note that the exclamation point, '!', is a special UNIX character, so if it is used on the command line rather than entered at a task prompt, it must be preceded by a backslash to force the UNIX shell to ignore it.
The expression may also include arithmetic operators and functions. Trigonometric functions use radians, not degrees. The following arithmetic operators and functions can be used in the expression (function names are case insensitive):
"addition" + "subtraction" - "multiplication" * "division" / "negation" - "exponentiation" ** ^ "absolute value" abs(x) "cosine" cos(x) "sine" sin(x) "tangent" tan(x) "arc cosine" arccos(x) "arc sine" arcsin(x) "arc tangent" arctan(x) "arc tangent" arctan2(x,y) "exponential" exp(x) "square root" sqrt(x) "natural log" log(x) "common log" log10(x) "modulus" i % j "random # [0.0,1.0)" random() "minimum" min(x,y) "maximum" max(x,y) "if-then-else" b?x:y
The following type casting operators are available, where the inclosing parentheses are required and taken from the C language usage. Also, the integer to real casts values to double precision:
"real to integer" (int) x (INT) x "integer to real" (float) i (FLOAT) i
Several constants are built in for use in numerical expressions:
#pi 3.1415... #e 2.7182... #deg #pi/180 #row current row number #null undefined value #snull undefined string
A string constant must be enclosed in quotes as in 'Crab'. The "null" constants are useful for conditionally setting table values to a NULL, or undefined, value (For example, "col1==-99 ? #NULL : col1").
There is also a function for testing if two values are close to each other, i.e., if they are "near" each other to within a user specified tolerance. The arguments, value_1 and value_2 can be integer or real and represent the two values who's proximity is being tested to be within the specified tolerance, also an integer or real:
near(value_1, value_2, tolerance)
When a NULL, or undefined, value is encountered in the FITS table, the expression will evaluate to NULL unless the undefined value is not actually required for evaluation, e.g. "TRUE .or. NULL" evaluates to TRUE. The following two functions allow some NULL detection and handling:
ISNULL(x) DEFNULL(x,y)
The former returns a boolean value of TRUE if the argument x is NULL. The later "defines" a value to be substituted for NULL values; it returns the value of x if x is not NULL, otherwise it returns the value of y.
Bit masks can be used to select out rows from bit columns (TFORMn = #X) in FITS files. To represent the mask, binary, octal, and hex formats are allowed:
binary: b0110xx1010000101xxxx0001 octal: o720x1 -> (b111010000xxx001) hex: h0FxD -> (b00001111xxxx1101)
In all the representations, an x or X is allowed in the mask as a wild card. Note that the x represents a different number of wild card bits in each representation. All representations are case insensitive.
To construct the boolean expression using the mask as the boolean equal operator described above on a bit table column. For example, if you had a 7 bit column named flags in a FITS table and wanted all rows having the bit pattern 0010011, the selection expression would be:
flags == b0010011 or flags .eq. b10011
It is also possible to test if a range of bits is less than, less than equal, greater than and greater than equal to a particular boolean value:
flags <= bxxx010xx flags .gt. bxxx100xx flags .le. b1xxxxxxx
Notice the use of the x bit value to limit the range of bits being compared.
It is not necessary to specify the leading (most significant) zero (0) bits in the mask, as shown in the second expression above.
Bit wise AND, OR and NOT operations are also possible on two or more bit fields using the '&'(AND), ''(OR), and the '!'(NOT) operators. All of these operators result in a bit field which can then be used with the equal operator. For example:
(!flags) == b1101100 (flags & b1000001) == bx000001
Bit fields can be appended as well using the '+' operator. Strings can be concatenated this way, too.
A common filtering method involves selecting rows which have a time value which lies within what is called a Good Time Interval or GTI. The time intervals are defined in a separate FITS table extension which contains 2 columns giving the start and stop time of each good interval. The filtering operation accepts only those rows of the input table which have an associated time which falls within one of the time intervals defined in the GTI extension. A high level function, gtifilter(a,b,c,d), is available which evaluates each row of the input table and returns TRUE or FALSE depending whether the row is inside or outside the good time interval. The syntax is
gtifilter( [ "gtifile" [, expr [, "STARTCOL", "STOPCOL" ] ] ] )where each "[]" demarks optional parameters. Note that the quotes around the gtifile and START/STOP column are required. Either single or double quote characters may be used. The gtifile, if specified, can be blank ("") which will mean to use the first extension with the name "*GTI*" in the current file, a plain extension specifier (eg, "+2", "[2]", or "[STDGTI]") which will be used to select an extension in the current file, or a regular filename with or without an extension specifier which in the latter case will mean to use the first extension with an extension name "*GTI*". Expr can be any arithmetic expression, including simply the time column name. A vector time expression will produce a vector boolean result. STARTCOL and STOPCOL are the names of the START/STOP columns in the GTI extension. If one of them is specified, they both must be.
In its simplest form, no parameters need to be provided - default values will be used. The expression "gtifilter()" is equivalent to
gtifilter( "", TIME, "*START*", "*STOP*" )This will search the current file for a GTI extension, filter the TIME column in the current table, using START/STOP times taken from columns in the GTI extension with names containing the strings "START" and "STOP". The wildcards ('*') allow slight variations in naming conventions such as "TSTART" or "STARTTIME". The same default values apply for unspecified parameters when the first one or two parameters are specified. The function automatically searches for TIMEZERO/I/F keywords in the current and GTI extensions, applying a relative time offset, if necessary.
Another common filtering method selects rows based on whether the spatial position associated with each row is located within a given 2-dimensional region. The syntax for this high-level filter is
regfilter( "regfilename" [ , Xexpr, Yexpr [ , "wcs cols" ] ] )where each "[ ]" demarks optional parameters. The region file name is required and must be enclosed in quotes. The remaining parameters are optional. The region file is an ASCII text file which contains a list of one or more geometric shapes (circle, ellipse, box, etc.) which defines a region on the celestial sphere or an area within a particular 2D image. The region file is typically generated using an image display program such as fv/POW (distribute by the HEASARC), or ds9 (distributed by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory). Users should refer to the documentation provided with these programs for more details on the syntax used in the region files.
In its simpliest form, (e.g., regfilter("region.reg") ) the coordinates in the default 'X' and 'Y' columns will be used to determine if each row is inside or outside the area specified in the region file. Alternate position column names, or expressions, may be entered if needed, as in
regfilter("region.reg", XPOS, YPOS)Region filtering can be applied most unambiguously if the positions in the region file and in the table to be filtered are both give in terms of absolute celestial coordinate units. In this case the locations and sizes of the geometric shapes in the region file are specified in angular units on the sky (e.g., positions given in R.A. and Dec. and sizes in arcseconds or arcminutes). Similarly, each row of the filtered table will have a celestial coordinate associated with it. This association is usually implemented using a set of so-called 'World Coordinate System' (or WCS) FITS keywords that define the coordinate transformation that must be applied to the values in the 'X' and 'Y' columns to calculate the coordinate.
Alternatively, one can perform spatial filtering using unitless 'pixel' coordinates for the regions and row positions. In this case the user must be careful to ensure that the positions in the 2 files are self-consistent. A typical problem is that the region file may be generated using a binned image, but the unbinned coordinates are given in the event table. The ROSAT events files, for example, have X and Y pixel coordinates that range from 1 - 15360. These coordinates are typically binned by a factor of 32 to produce a 480x480 pixel image. If one then uses a region file generated from this image (in image pixel units) to filter the ROSAT events file, then the X and Y column values must be converted to corresponding pixel units as in:
regfilter("rosat.reg", X/32.+.5, Y/32.+.5)Note that this binning conversion is not necessary if the region file is specified using celestial coordinate units instead of pixel units because CFITSIO is then able to directly compare the celestial coordinate of each row in the table with the celestial coordinates in the region file without having to know anything about how the image may have been binned.
The last "wcs cols" parameter should rarely be needed. If supplied, this string contains the names of the 2 columns (space or comma separated) which have the associated WCS keywords. If not supplied, the filter will scan the X and Y expressions for column names. If only one is found in each expression, those columns will be used, otherwise an error will be returned.
These region shapes are supported (names are case insensitive):
Point ( X1, Y1 ) <- One pixel square region Line ( X1, Y1, X2, Y2 ) <- One pixel wide region Polygon ( X1, Y1, X2, Y2, ... ) <- Rest are interiors with Rectangle ( X1, Y1, X2, Y2, A ) | boundaries considered Box ( Xc, Yc, Wdth, Hght, A ) V within the region Diamond ( Xc, Yc, Wdth, Hght, A ) Circle ( Xc, Yc, R ) Annulus ( Xc, Yc, Rin, Rout ) Ellipse ( Xc, Yc, Rx, Ry, A ) Elliptannulus ( Xc, Yc, Rinx, Riny, Routx, Routy, Ain, Aout ) Sector ( Xc, Yc, Amin, Amax )where (Xc,Yc) is the coordinate of the shape's center; (X#,Y#) are the coordinates of the shape's edges; Rxxx are the shapes' various Radii or semimajor/minor axes; and Axxx are the angles of rotation (or bounding angles for Sector) in degrees. For rotated shapes, the rotation angle can be left off, indicating no rotation. Common alternate names for the regions can also be used: rotbox = box; rotrectangle = rectangle; (rot)rhombus = (rot)diamond; and pie = sector. When a shape's name is preceded by a minus sign, '-', the defined region is instead the area *outside* its boundary (ie, the region is inverted). All the shapes within a single region file are OR'd together to create the region, and the order is significant. The overall way of looking at region files is that if the first region is an excluded region then a dummy included region of the whole detector is inserted in the front. Then each region specification as it is processed overrides any selections inside of that region specified by previous regions. Another way of thinking about this is that if a previous excluded region is completely inside of a subsequent included region the excluded region is ignored.
The positional coordinates may be given either in pixel units, decimal degrees or hh:mm:ss.s, dd:mm:ss.s units. The shape sizes may be given in pixels, degrees, arcminutes, or arcseconds. Look at examples of region file produced by fv/POW or ds9 for further details of the region file format.
[double && mag <= 5.0] - Extract all double stars brighter than fifth magnitude [#row >= 125 && #row <= 175] - Extract row numbers 125 through 175 [abs(sin(theta * #deg)) < 0.5] - Extract all rows having the absolute value of the sine of theta less than a half where the angles are tabulated in degrees [@rowFilter.txt] - Extract rows using the expression contained within the text file rowFilter.txt [gtifilter()] - Search the current file for a GTI extension, filter the TIME column in the current table, using START/STOP times taken from columns in the GTI extension [regfilter("pow.reg")] - Extract rows which have a coordinate (as given in the X and Y columns) within the spatial region specified in the pow.reg region file.
The previous sections described all the individual types of filters that may be applied to the input file. In this section we show examples which combine several different filters at once. These examples all use the fitscopy program that is distributed with the CFITSIO code. It simply copies the input file to the output file.
fitscopy rosat.fit out.fit
This trivial example simply makes an identical copy of the input rosat.fit file without any filtering.
fitscopy 'rosat.fit[events][col Time;X;Y][#row < 1000]' out.fit
The output file contains only the Time, X, and Y columns, and only the first 999 rows from the 'EVENTS' table extension of the input file. All the other HDUs in the input file are copied to the output file without any modification.
fitscopy 'rosat.fit[events][PI < 50][bin (Xdet,Ydet) = 16]' image.fit
This creates an output image by binning the Xdet and Ydet columns of the events table with a pixel binning factor of 16. Only the rows which have a PI energy less than 50 are used to construct this image. The output image file contains a primary array image without any extensions.
fitscopy 'rosat.fit[events][gtifilter() && regfilter("pow.reg")]' out.fit
The filtering expression in this example uses the gtifilter function to test whether the TIME column value in each row is within one of the Good Time Intervals defined in the GTI extension in the same input file, and also uses the regfilter function to test if the position associated with each row (derived by default from the values in the X and Y columns of the events table) is located within the area defined in the pow.reg text region file (which was previously created with the fv/POW image display program). Only the rows which satisfy both tests are copied to the output table.
fitscopy 'r.fit[evt][PI<50]' stdout | fitscopy stdin[evt][col X,Y] out.fit
In this somewhat convoluted example, fitscopy is used to first select the rows from the evt extension which have PI less than 50 and write the resulting table out to the stdout stream. This is piped to a 2nd instance of fitscopy (with the Unix `' pipe command) which reads that filtered FITS file from the stdin stream and copies only the X and Y columns from the evt table to the output file.
fitscopy 'r.fit[evt][col RAD=sqrt((X-#XCEN)**2+(Y-#YCEN)**2)][rad<100]' out.fit
This example first creates a new column called RAD which gives the distance between the X,Y coordinate of each event and the coordinate defined by the XCEN and YCEN keywords in the header. Then, only those rows which have a distance less than 100 are copied to the output table. In other words, only the events which are located within 100 pixel units from the (XCEN, YCEN) coordinate are copied to the output table.
fitscopy 'ftp://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/rosat.fit[events][bin (X,Y)=16]' img.fit
This example bins the X and Y columns of the hypothetical ROSAT file at the HEASARC ftp site to create the output image.
fitscopy 'raw.fit[i512,512][101:110,51:60]' image.fit
This example converts the 512 x 512 pixel raw binary 16-bit integer image to a FITS file and copies a 10 x 10 pixel subimage from it to the output FITS image.
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_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 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_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 datatype 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 or > MAXHDU 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 datatype 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 datatype 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
This document was generated using the LaTeX2HTML translator Version 2002-2-1 (1.70)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996,
Nikos Drakos,
Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds.
Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999,
Ross Moore,
Mathematics Department, Macquarie University, Sydney.
The command line arguments were:
latex2html -address ' ' -local_icons -t Quick -no_images -show_section_numbers quick.tex
The translation was initiated by William Pence on 2006-02-22
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .