A.2.1.3 Mode Specifier

The mode specifier determines what happens to the processed table when it reaches the output end of the pipeline. Only one of the following should be specified:

-write [-ofmt <out-format>] [-o <out-table>]

A new table is written. If the -o flag is specified, output is <out-table>; otherwise, or if <out-table> has the special value "-", it's streamed to standard output. The output format is named using the -ofmt flag (see Section 3.2); if not supplied, an attempt is made to guess the format from the destination name. If neither -o nor -ofmt is specified, it's written in formatted text format to standard output (equivalent to -o - -ofmt text).

If you give an unknown output format (e.g. -ofmt help) then a list of all known formats will be printed.

-tosql <jdbc-url> [-user <username>] [-password <password>]

A new table is written to an SQL database. You need the appropriate JDBC drivers and -Djdbc.drivers set as usual (see Section 2.6). You can specify your SQL connection username and password or not - you will be prompted on the terminal if they are required.

-stats

Calculates and displays statistics (mean, standard deviation, minimum, maximum and number of good columns) for each column in the input table.

-meta

Prints to standard output the table metadata: parameters and column names.

-count

Counts the number of rows and columns and writes the answers to standard output.

-topcat

Displays the output table directly in TOPCAT. If a TOPCAT instance (version 1.6 or later) is already running on the local host, the table will be opened in that, otherwise a new TOPCAT instance will be launched for display. The latter mode only works if the TOPCAT classes are on the class path. There are currently limits to the size of table that can be transmitted to the application in this way - it is hoped that this can be improved in future versions (Axis upgrade).

If no mode specifier is given, -write is assumed. This means that with no mode specifier, the processed table is written to standard output in text format.