[iaufwg] New draft FITS Standard

[Arnold Rots]

While I have restrained myself from bringing up the issue of
recognizing unsigned integer data types during the earlier discussion,
it struck me while reading through the comments that it might have
been useful to add ISO-8601 datetime to the recognized data types.
I *think* DATExxxx are the only keywords defined as a string where the
format is prescribed. Adopting datetime as a data type in its own
right would remove this anomaly.
I would argue that this is no different from accepting T and F as
representing a separate logical data type.
What this opens up, of course, is the possibility of also allowing
the datetime type to be used in table extensions.

I hate bringing this kind of thing up at such a late date (or, rather,
I'm sure people will hate me for it), and the amount of extra work
involved may be more than we can afford to expend right now, but I
think that the issue should at least be raised.

Cheers,

  - Arnold

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Arnold H. Rots                                Chandra X-ray Science Center
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory                tel:  +1 617 496 7701
60 Garden Street, MS 67                              fax:  +1 617 495 7356
Cambridge, MA 02138                             arots at head.cfa.harvard.edu
USA                                     http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/
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