The table upload feature finds positional matches with coordinates in an input source list. The input table file must be created on the client machine in ASCII format according to rules regarding formatting and column names. IRSA recommends uploading new tables to the Table Formatting service, which aids users by discovering and attempting to correct common formatting problems.

Use the "Browse..." button to select the local table file for upload, or type in the file name. If the radius is not included in the table, enter the radius of the search region and select the required angular unit. If the search radius exceeds the maximum allowed value, Gator will default to the maximum value and write a message to this effect to the query monitor.

Two search modes are available for table upload:

• specifiy parameters through the Gator interface, or
• read parameters from user's table

Gator also allows the user to upload a table with cone search parameters defined in the input table. In that case, the "radius" box on the Gator interface must be blank or "0". In the user table, column names of "major", "ratio", and "angle" are required for an elliptical search, while a column name of "major" is necessary for a circular search. If the user wishes to perform the same cone search on all entries in the input table, these cone search parameters can be input in the Gator interface instead.

Ellipse Search Example

The following is an example of a table with elliptical search parameters: major (the semi-major axis), ratio and angle (the position angle). Missing ratio and angle columns result in a circular search with radius equal to major.

\ Example of ellipse search
\EQUINOX = 'J2000.0'
|   ra     |   dec    |  major | ratio | angle |
|   double |   double | double | double| double|
185.500000  15.500000    1000.    0.25    30
186.000000  15.000000     500.    0.50    60

This example shows a table with the semi-major axis given in the third column and the ratio in the fourth column of the table. Since no position angle is provided, the default of 0 is used.

\ Example of ellipse search
\EQUINOX = 'J2000.0'
|   ra     |   dec    |  major | ratio |
|   double |   double | double | double|
185.500000  15.500000    1000.   0.25
186.000000  15.000000     500.   0.50

Cone Search Example

Example of a table with the semi-major axis given in the third column of the table. Since no axis ratio or position angle is given, this results in a circular search.

\ Example of cone search
\EQUINOX = 'J2000.0'
|   ra     |   dec    |  major |
|   double |   double | double |
185.500000  15.500000    1000.
186.000000  15.000000     500.

Detailed Table Format and Column Naming Rules

1. The Table File Name (on the user's machine)

No more than 9 characters, followed by ".tbl". Use only letters, numbers or underscores ("_"). The first character must be alphabetic; no numerals allowed.
Examples: Seyferts.tbl, MyListJ2k.tbl, LBD4_16A.tbl

2.Table Keywords and Comment lines (optional)

Keywords follow the FITS keyword=value model. The keyword names start with "\", followed by 8 characters, followed by an equals sign ("="), followed by the value. "\" followed by a space is treated as comment line. The comment line should have no more than 80 characters.

3. Column Names

Line 1 contains field (column) names separated by bars (|):

• Positional comparisons (rather than a relational join on an integer or character column) require columns named "ra" and "dec", in equatorial J2000 coordinates in decimal degrees. More flexibility on input coordinate names and types will be considered in future versions.
• Do not include columns with names "x", "y", or "z" (lower or UPPER case). The IRSA ASCII table import software automatically computes unit sphere coordinates with these names and adds them to the DBMS table for efficient spatial searches. For example, 'z' for redshift must not be used; simply give the column a unique name, such as 'redshift'
• Alpha numeric characters only, including underscores. For example, "B-V", "L+V", or "mag.b" are illegal. No blanks or white space. For example, use "U_mag" instead of "U mag" .
• No more than 16 characters
• If SQL column constraints on the online catalog are included with your positional comparisons, the names of the columns in the table must be unique. For example, to extract a subset of the IRAS FSC and export the columns fnu_60 and fnu_100, rename the columns in the extracted table (e.g., fnu_60_fsc and fnu_100_fsc) before uploading and comparing against positions in the IRAS PSC with joint constraint "fnu_60 > 10.0".

5. Datatypes

Line 2 contains variable types (r=real, d=double, i=int, c=char) separated by bars ("|") which must be aligned with the bars in Line 1.

6. Other Notes:

• Currently the table can contain J2000 equatorial coordinates in decimal degrees with column names "ra" and "dec", along with other user defined columns. Equatorial coordinates in another equinox or in sexigesimal format, Galactic, or ecliptic coordinates will be considered in a future upgrade to Gator.
• Character ("char") type columns must have less than 77 characters (between the "|" bars). Column values should be aligned WITHIN the vertical delimiting bars in the header. Overlaps with a header bar are not allowed. In other words, a delimiting pipe bar should top a column containing only blanks below it.
• Missing values (NULLs) can be most easily handled by entering blanks (white space) or the string "null" in numeric data column (type integer, real, or double) to represent missing data.