The usage of tcat
is
stilts <stilts-flags> tcat in=<table> [<table> ...] ifmt=<in-format> multi=true|false istream=true|false icmd=<cmds> ocmd=<cmds> omode=out|meta|stats|count|checksum|cgi|discard|topcat|samp|plastic|tosql|gui out=<out-table> ofmt=<out-format> seqcol=<colname> loccol=<colname> uloccol=<colname> lazy=true|false countrows=true|falseIf you don't have the
stilts
script installed,
write "java -jar stilts.jar
" instead of
"stilts
" - see Section 3.
The available <stilts-flags>
are listed
in Section 2.1.
For programmatic invocation,
the Task class for this
command is uk.ac.starlink.ttools.task.TableCat
.
Parameter values are assigned on the command line as explained in Section 2.3. They are as follows:
countrows = true|false
(Boolean)
[Default: false
]
icmd = <cmds>
(ProcessingStep[])
in
,
before any other processing has taken place.
The value of this parameter is one or more of the filter
commands described in Section 6.1.
If more than one is given, they must be separated by
semicolon characters (";").
This parameter can be repeated multiple times on the same
command line to build up a list of processing steps.
The sequence of commands given in this way
defines the processing pipeline which is performed on the table.
Commands may alternatively be supplied in an external file,
by using the indirection character '@
'.
Thus a value of "@filename
"
causes the file filename
to be read for a list
of filter commands to execute. The commands in the file
may be separated by newline characters and/or semicolons,
and lines which are blank or which start with a
'#
' character are ignored.
A backslash character '\
' at the end of a line
joins it with the following line.
ifmt = <in-format>
(String)
in
.
The known formats are listed in Section 5.1.1.
This flag can be used if you know what format your
table is in.
If it has the special value
(auto)
(the default),
then an attempt will be
made to detect the format of the table automatically.
This cannot always be done correctly however, in which case
the program will exit with an error explaining which
formats were attempted.
This parameter is ignored for scheme-specified tables.
The same format parameter applies to all the tables
specified by in
.
[Default: (auto)
]
in = <table> [<table> ...]
(TableProducer[])
The following table location forms are allowed:
-
",
meaning standard input.
In this case the input format must be given explicitly
using the ifmt
parameter.
Note that not all formats can be streamed in this way.:<scheme-name>:<scheme-args>
.<
" character at the start,
or a "|
" character at the end
("<syscmd
" or
"syscmd|
").
This executes the given pipeline and reads from its
standard output.
This will probably only work on unix-like systems.A list of input table locations may be given in an external
file by using the indirction character '@'.
Thus "in=@filename
"
causes the file filename
to be read for a list
of input table locations. The locations in the file should
each be on a separate line.
istream = true|false
(Boolean)
in
parameter
will be read as a stream.
It is necessary to give the
ifmt
parameter
in this case.
Depending on the required operations and processing mode,
this may cause the read to fail (sometimes it is necessary
to read the table more than once).
It is not normally necessary to set this flag;
in most cases the data will be streamed automatically
if that is the best thing to do.
However it can sometimes result in less resource usage when
processing large files in certain formats (such as VOTable).
This parameter is ignored for scheme-specified tables.
The same streaming flag applies to all the tables specified by
in
.
[Default: false
]
lazy = true|false
(Boolean)
[Default: false
]
loccol = <colname>
(String)
multi = true|false
(Boolean)
false
, then just the first table from each
file named by in
will be used.
If true
, then all tables present in those
input files will be used.
This only has an effect for file formats which are capable
of containing more than one table, which effectively means
FITS and VOTable and their variants.
[Default: false
]
ocmd = <cmds>
(ProcessingStep[])
Commands may alternatively be supplied in an external file,
by using the indirection character '@
'.
Thus a value of "@filename
"
causes the file filename
to be read for a list
of filter commands to execute. The commands in the file
may be separated by newline characters and/or semicolons,
and lines which are blank or which start with a
'#
' character are ignored.
A backslash character '\
' at the end of a line
joins it with the following line.
ofmt = <out-format>
(String)
(auto)
"
(the default),
then the output filename will be
examined to try to guess what sort of file is required
usually by looking at the extension.
If it's not obvious from the filename what output format is
intended, an error will result.
This parameter must only be given if
omode
has its default value of "out
".
[Default: (auto)
]
omode = out|meta|stats|count|checksum|cgi|discard|topcat|samp|plastic|tosql|gui
(ProcessingMode)
out
, which means that
the result will be written as a new table to disk or elsewhere,
as determined by the out
and ofmt
parameters.
However, there are other possibilities, which correspond
to uses to which a table can be put other than outputting it,
such as displaying metadata, calculating statistics,
or populating a table in an SQL database.
For some values of this parameter, additional parameters
(<mode-args>
)
are required to determine the exact behaviour.
Possible values are
out
meta
stats
count
checksum
cgi
discard
topcat
samp
plastic
tosql
gui
help=omode
flag
or see Section 6.4 for more information.
[Default: out
]
out = <out-table>
(TableConsumer)
This parameter must only be given if
omode
has its default value of "out
".
[Default: -
]
seqcol = <colname>
(String)
uloccol = <colname>
(String)