IPAC Table Format

The table must be in IPAC Table Format, an ASCII column delimited format in which vertical lines (|) are used to define the boundaries of each column. See these two sample files, one in which the cone search radius is defined in this table, and one in which it is not.

Tables must be formatted as follows:

• Positions must be specified in RAJ2000 and DecJ2000 format.
• Position columns must be given the names ra and dec.
• Position entries must be in decimal degrees.
• (Optional) The cone search radius column must be named "radius."
• (Optional) The cone search radius must be a floating point variable.
• Rows starting with a vertical line ( | ) are table header lines. The first of these (the only one required) must contain the names of each column (e.g., ra, dec, flux).
• The columns in the header row are separated by a vertical line ( | ) to show the boundaries of each column.
• There is also a vertical line at the beginning and end of the header row.
• There must be at least one row of data in the row directly following the header row, and the data should align with the column names.
• The number of cells containing data must be equal to or less than the number of columns.
• The data columns are lined up because they are column-aligned, which also makes the data more readable.
• Data must fit within the boundaries of each column and not extend beyond the vertical header lines.
• Running new tables through the table validation service is recommended. This attempts to correct for common formatting problems. Please follow the Best Practices listed below to reduce formatting errors.
• Columns must not contain "non-printable" ASCII characters. Printable characters are things like "a" and "?". Non-printable characters are occasionally inserted by text editing programs for their own purposes, and include symbols like ESCAPE ( ^[ ), FORMFEED ( ^L ) and DELETE.
• Be very careful when using tabs. A tab ( ^I ) is a single character used in most editors to define a display action ("jump to the next tab stop"). In aligned data, such as those in an IPAC ASCII Column-Aligned format, tabs can make the data look aligned, when the characters don't line up and are therefore illegal. Any extra tabs will inflate the column count. It is best to remove all tabs.
• Use an ASCII text editing program, such as Notepad in Windows or TextEdit on Apple computers, which prevents extraneous characters from being inserted.