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#### 3.6.13 Tab-Separated Table

Tab-Separated Table, or TST, is a text-based table format used by a number of astronomical tools including Starlink's GAIA and ESO's SkyCat on which it is based. A definition of the format can be found in Starlink Software Note 75. The implementation here ignores all comment lines: special comments such as the "`#column-units:`" are not processed.

An example looks like this:

        Simple TST example; stellar photometry catalogue.

        A.C. Davenhall (Edinburgh) 26/7/00.

        Catalogue of U,B,V colours.
        UBV photometry from Mount Pumpkin Observatory,
        see Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1988).

        # Start of parameter definitions.
        EQUINOX: J2000.0
        EPOCH: J1996.35

        id_col: -1
        ra_col: 0
        dec_col: 1

        # End of parameter definitions.
        ra<tab>dec<tab>V<tab>B_V<tab>U_B
        --<tab>---<tab>-<tab>---<tab>---
        5:09:08.7<tab> -8:45:15<tab>  4.27<tab>  -0.19<tab>  -0.90
        5:07:50.9<tab> -5:05:11<tab>  2.79<tab>  +0.13<tab>  +0.10
        5:01:26.3<tab> -7:10:26<tab>  4.81<tab>  -0.19<tab>  -0.74
        5:17:36.3<tab> -6:50:40<tab>  3.60<tab>  -0.11<tab>  -0.47
        [EOD]

This format cannot be automatically identified by its content, so in general it is necessary to specify that a table is in TST format when reading it.

The handler class for this format is `TstTableBuilder`.

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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