Ubuntu Manpage: stilts-tcatn - Concatenates multiple tables

NAME

       stilts-tcatn - Concatenates multiple tables

SYNOPSIS


       stilts tcatn [nin=<count>] [ifmtN=<in-format>] [inN=<tableN>] [icmdN=<cmds>] [ocmd=<cmds>]
                    [omode=out|meta|stats|count|checksum|cgi|discard|topcat|samp|tosql|gui] [out=<out-table>]
                    [ofmt=<out-format>] [seqcol=<colname>] [loccol=<colname>] [uloccol=<colname>]
                    [countrows=true|false]

DESCRIPTION

       tcatn  is  a tool for concatenating a number of tables one after the other. Each table can be manipulated
       separately prior to the concatenatation. If you have two tables T1 and T2 which contain similar  columns,
       and  you  want  to  treat them as a single table, you can use tcatn to produce a new table whose metadata
       (row headings etc) comes from T1 and whose data consists of all the rows of T1 followed by all  the  rows
       of T2.

       For  this concatenation to make sense, each column of T1 must be compatible with the corresponding column
       of T2 - they must have compatible types and, presumably, meanings. If this is not the case for the tables
       that you wish to concatenate, for instance the columns are in different orders, or the units  differ  be‐
       tween  a column in T1 and its opposite number in T2, you can use the icmd1 and/or icmd2 parameters to ma‐
       nipulate the input tables so that the column sequences are compatible. See SUN/256 for some examples.

       If the tables are similar to each other (same format, same columns, same preprocessing stages required if
       any), you may find it easier to use tcat instead.

OPTIONS

nin=<count>
The number of input tables for this task. For each of the input tables N there will be associated
parameters ifmtN, inN and icmdN.

ifmtN=<in-format>
Specifies the format of input table #N as specified by parameter inN. 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 auto‐
matically. 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.

inN=<tableN>
The location of input table #N. This may take one of the following forms:

* A filename.

* A URL.

* The special value "-", meaning standard input. In this case the input format must be given ex‐
plicitly using the ifmtN 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.
In any case, compressed data in one of the supported compression formats (gzip, Unix compress or
bzip2) will be decompressed transparently.

icmdN=<cmds>
Specifies processing to be performed on input table #N as specified by parameter inN, before any
other processing has taken place. The value of this parameter is one or more of the filter com‐
mands described in SUN/256. If more than one is given, they must be separated by semicolon charac‐
ters (";"). 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.

ocmd=<cmds>
Specifies processing to be performed on the output table, after all 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.

omode=out|meta|stats|count|checksum|cgi|discard|topcat|samp|tosql|gui
The mode in which the result table will be output. The default mode is out, which means that the
result will be written as a new table to disk or elsewhere, as determined by the out and ofmt pa‐
rameters. However, there are other possibilities, which correspond to uses to which a table can be
put other than outputting it, such as displaying metadata, calculating statistics, or populating a
table in an SQL database. For some values of this parameter, additional parameters (<mode-args>)
are required to determine the exact behaviour.

Possible values are

* out

* meta

* stats

* count

* checksum

* cgi

* discard

* topcat

* samp

* tosql

* gui
Use the help=omode flag or see SUN/256 for more information.

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

This parameter must only be given if omode has its default value of "out".

ofmt=<out-format>
Specifies the format in which the output table 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.

This parameter must only be given if omode has its default value of "out".

seqcol=<colname>
Name of a column to be added to the output table which will contain the sequence number of the in‐
put table from which each row originated. This column will contain 1 for the rows from the first
concatenated table, 2 for the second, and so on.

loccol=<colname>
Name of a column to be added to the output table which will contain the location (as specified in
the input parameter(s)) of the input table from which each row originated.

uloccol=<colname>
Name of a column to be added to the output table which will contain the unique part of the loca‐
tion (as specified in the input parameter(s)) of the input table from which each row originated.
If not null, parameters will also be added to the output table giving the pre- and post-fix string
common to all the locations. For example, if the input tables are "/data/cat_a1.fits" and "/da‐
ta/cat_b2.fits" then the output table will contain a new column <colname> which takes the value
"a1" for rows from the first table and "b2" for rows from the second, and new parameters "<col‐
name>_prefix" and "<colname>_postfix" with the values "/data/cat_" and ".fits" respectively.

countrows=true|false
Whether to count the rows in the table before starting the output. This is essentially a tuning
parameter - if writing to an output format which requires the number of rows up front (such as
normal FITS) it may result in skipping the number of passes through the input files required for
processing. Unless you have a good understanding of the internals of the software, your best bet
for working out whether to set this true or false is to try it both ways

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