CalTech's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center use a text-based format for storage of tabular data, defined at http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/applications/DDGEN/Doc/ipac_tbl.html. Tables can store column name, type, units and null values, as well as table parameters.
This format cannot be automatically identified
by its content, so in general it is necessary
to specify that a table is in
IPAC
format when reading it.
However, if the input file has
the extension ".tbl
" or ".ipac
" (case insensitive)
an attempt will be made to read it using this format.
An example looks like this:
\Table name = "animals.vot" \Description = "Some animals" \Author = "Mark Taylor" | RECNO | SPECIES | NAME | LEGS | HEIGHT | MAMMAL | | int | char | char | int | double | char | | | | | | m | | | null | null | null | null | null | null | 1 pig Pigling Bland 4 0.8 true 2 cow Daisy 4 2.0 true 3 goldfish Dobbin null 0.05 false 4 ant null 6 0.001 false 5 ant null 6 0.001 false 6 queen ant Ma'am 6 0.002 false 7 human Mark 2 1.8 true