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3.5 Supplied Input Handlers

The table input handlers supplied with STIL are listed in this section, along with notes on any peculiarities they have in turning a string into a StarTable. By default, any of these can be used in a StarTableFactory's named format mode, but only some of them in automatic format detection mode.

In most cases the string supplied to name the table that StarTableFactory should read is a filename or a URL, referencing a plain or compressed copy of the stream from which the file is available. In some cases an additional specifier can be given after a '#' character to give additional information about where in that stream the table is located.

This table summarises which input handlers are available, what format strings they use, and whether they are tried in automatic format detection mode.

    Format string  Format Read                          Automatic Format Mode?  Multiple Tables?
    -------------  -----------                          ----------------------  ----------------
    FITS           FITS BINTABLE or ASCII extension            yes                 yes
    FITS-plus      FITS with VOTable metadata in HDU#0         yes                 yes
    VOTable        VOTable 1.0/1.1/1.2/1.3/1.4                 yes                 yes
    colfits-plus   Column-oriented FITS with VOTable metadata  yes                  no
    colfits-basic  Column-oriented FITS                         no                  no
    ECSV           Extended Character-Separated Values         yes                  no
    CDF            NASA Common Data Format                     yes                  no
    Feather        Feather format                              yes                  no
    ASCII          Whitespace-separated ASCII                   no                  no
    CSV            Comma-separated values                       no                  no
    IPAC           IPAC Table Format                            no                  no
    GBIN           Gaia/DPAC internal data format              yes                  no
    WDC            World Data Centre format                     no                  no


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STIL - Starlink Tables Infrastructure Library
Starlink User Note252
STIL web page: http://www.starlink.ac.uk/stil/
Author email: m.b.taylor@bristol.ac.uk