STILTS-TMULTI(1)

NAME
stilts-tmulti - Writes multiple tables to a single container file

SYNOPSIS

stilts tmulti [in=<table> [<table> ...]] [ifmt=<in-format>] [multi=true|false] [istream=true|false] [icmd=<cmds>] [out=<out-file>] [ofmt=<out-format>]

DESCRIPTION

tmulti takes multiple input tables and writes them as separate tables to a single output container file. The container file must be of some format which can contain more than one table, for instance a FITS file (which can contain multiple extensions) or a VOTable document (which can contain multiple TABLE elements). Filtering may be performed on the tables prior to writing them. It is not necessary that all the tables are similar (e.g. that they all have the same type and number of columns), but the same processing commands will be applied to all of them. For more individual control, use the tmultin task.

OPTIONS

in=<table> [<table> ...]
    Locations of the input tables. Either specify the parameter multiple times, or supply the input tables as a space-separated list within a single use.

    The following table location forms are allowed:

        *   A filename.

        *   A URL.

        *   The special value "-", meaning standard input. In this case the input format must be given explicitly using the ifmt parameter. Note that not all formats can be streamed in this way.

        *   A scheme specification of the form :<scheme-name>:<scheme-args>.

        *   A system command line with either a "<" character at the start, or a "|" character at the end ("<syscmd" or "syscmd|"). This executes the given pipeline and reads from its standard output. This will probably only work on unix-like systems.
     Compression in any of the supported compression formats (Unix compress, gzip or bzip2) is expanded automatically.

    A list of input table locations may be given in an external file by using the indirction character '@'. Thus "in=@filename" causes the file filename to be read for a list of input table locations. The locations in the file should each be on a separate line.

ifmt=<in-format>
    Specifies the format of the input table as specified by parameter in. The known formats are listed in SUN/256. This flag can be used if you know what format your table is in. If it has the special value (auto) (the default), then an attempt will be made to detect the format of the table automatically. This cannot always be done correctly however, in which case the program will exit with an error explaining which formats were attempted. This parameter is ignored for scheme-specified tables.

    The same format parameter applies to all the tables specified by in.

multi=true|false
    Determines whether all tables, or just the first one, from input table files will be used. If set false, then just the first table from each file named by in will be used. If true, then all tables present in those input files will be used. This only has an effect for file formats which are capable of containing more than one table, which effectively means FITS and VOTable and their variants.

istream=true|false
    If set true, the input table specified by the in parameter will be read as a stream. It is necessary to give the ifmt parameter in this case. Depending on the required operations and processing mode, this may cause the read to fail (sometimes it is necessary to read the table more than once). It is not normally necessary to set this flag; in most cases the data will be streamed automatically if that is the best thing to do. However it can sometimes result in less resource usage when processing large files in certain formats (such as VOTable). This parameter is ignored for scheme-specified tables.

    The same streaming flag applies to all the tables specified by in.

icmd=<cmds>
    Specifies processing to be performed on each input table as specified by parameter in, before any other processing has taken place. The value of this parameter is one or more of the filter commands described in SUN/256. If more than one is given, they must be separated by semicolon characters (";"). This parameter can be repeated multiple times on the same command line to build up a list of processing steps. The sequence of commands given in this way defines the processing pipeline which is performed on the table.

    Commands may alternatively be supplied in an external file, by using the indirection character '@'. Thus a value of "@filename" causes the file filename to be read for a list of filter commands to execute. The commands in the file may be separated by newline characters and/or semicolons, and lines which are blank or which start with a '#' character are ignored. A backslash character '\fR' at the end of a line joins it with the following line.

out=<out-file>
    The location of the output file. This is usually a filename to write to. If it is equal to the special value "-" the output will be written to standard output.

ofmt=<out-format>
    Specifies the format in which the output tables will be written (one of the ones in SUN/256 - matching is case-insensitive and you can use just the first few letters). If it has the special value "(auto)" (the default), then the output filename will be examined to try to guess what sort of file is required usually by looking at the extension. If it's not obvious from the filename what output format is intended, an error will result.

    Not all output formats are capable of writing multiple tables; if you choose one that is not, an error will result.

SEE ALSO
stilts(1)

If the package stilts-doc is installed, the full documentation SUN/256 is available in HTML format:
file:///usr/share/doc/stilts/sun256/index.html

VERSION
STILTS version 3.5.2-debian

This is the Debian version of Stilts, which lack the support of some file formats and network protocols. For differences see
file:///usr/share/doc/stilts/README.Debian

AUTHOR
Mark Taylor (Bristol University)