[iaufwg] FITS Registry Proposal

[Steve Allen]

On Thu 2006-03-23T10:46:05 +0100, Lucio Chiappetti hath writ:
> Incidentally, this item reminds me of a small detail. Should we want to
> provide some "automatic" way to classify a FITS file according to the
> conventions supported ?  I'm thinking of the "file" command and its
> "magic" file. Should we encourage convention mantainers to supply a
> "magic" description or even help them to build one ?

I don't see this as a small detail.

Perhaps I have been hanging around the VO community too much, but
it is my impression that in the 21st century the FITS conventions
should be described by a formal, machine-checkable grammar.

I imagine some sort of XML schema which permits the description of the
keywords and how they fit into HDUs, tables, and extensions along with
the usual extensive English text description of the semantics of each
element.  I imagine using this schema as a means of validating any
proposed convention.  I imagine tools which serialize and deserialize
from XML to FITS and vice versa such that example FITS files can
be produced from the convention and such that supposed FITS files
can have their syntax formally checked by the XML parser.

I recognize that (aside from the BNF in the NOST document) FITS has
formally been a text-based standard.  I recognize that there is a lot
of work involved in creating such a scheme and proving that it works.
But I also worry that failure to do this may leave FITS as a 20th
century relic which will be increasingly ignored in favor of schemes
with such 21st century features.

--
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