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VOTable is an XML-based format for storage and transmission of
tabular data, endorsed by the
International Virtual Observatory
Alliance,
who make available the schema
(http://www.ivoa.net/xml/VOTable/v1.1)
and documentation
(http://www.ivoa.net/Documents/latest/VOT.html).
The current version of STIL provides full support for versions 1.0 and 1.1
of the format.
As with the other handlers tabular data can be read from and
written to VOTable documents using the generic facilities described
in Section 3. However if you know you're going to be
dealing with VOTables the VOTable-specific parts of
the library can be used on their own; this may be more convenient and
it also allows access to some features specific to VOTables.
The VOTable functionality is provided in the package
uk.ac.starlink.votable
.
It has the following features:
- Reads all VOTable data formats (TABLEDATA/FITS/BINARY)
- Writes all VOTable data formats
- Full access to document structure as a DOM
- Full handling of array types
- Flexible table output
- Hybrid (SAX/DOM) parsing for memory & CPU efficiency
- Large table access (not limited by memory)
- Fast
- Resolution of relative URLs
- Sequential/random access to tabular data
- Best efforts parsing of non-conforming documents
- Optional disk-based caching of table data when read
Most of these are described in subsequent sections.
Many of them, particularly handling of BINARY and FITS format data,
are at time of writing not believed to be
available in any other VOTable libraries.
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Next: StarTable Representation of VOTables
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STIL - Starlink Tables Infrastructure Library
Starlink User Note
252
STIL web page:
http://www.starlink.ac.uk/stil/
Author email:
m.b.taylor@bristol.ac.uk
Starlink: http://www.starlink.ac.uk/