STILTS-TCATN(1)

📦
version 3.5.4 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💖 STILTS-TCATN — bestie edition 💖

okay so this is the manual page for stilts-tcatn, a Stilts command. Let's get into it, no cap.

✨ 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 🦋

so tcatn is THE tool for concatenating a bunch of tables one after the other. literally stacking them. and the cute part? each table can be manipulated separately before the concatenation happens. main character energy for every single input, periodt.

here's the scenario: say you've got two tables, T1 and T2, and they've got similar columns, and you're like "ugh I wish these were one table." boom. tcatn produces a brand new table whose metadata (row headings etc) comes from T1, and whose data is all the rows of T1 followed by all the rows of T2. it's giving fusion. it's giving merge. it's giving ✨concatenation✨.

for this concatenation to make sense, every column of T1 has to be compatible with the corresponding column of T2 — compatible types, and presumably compatible meanings too. like, they need to actually be the same vibe. if that's not the case for the tables you want to concatenate — for instance the columns are in different orders, or the units differ between a column in T1 and its opposite number in T2 — you can use the icmd1 and/or icmd2 parameters to manipulate the input tables so that the column sequences are compatible. see SUN/256 for some examples 💅

oh and heads up: if your 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. just saying. iykyk.

🌸 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. one family of params per table, slay.
  • 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 is for when you already know what format your table is in, bestie. if it has the special value (auto) (which is the default, btw), then an attempt will be made to detect the format of the table automatically. but lowkey this cannot always be done correctly, and in that case the program will exit with an error explaining which formats were attempted. also: this parameter is ignored for scheme-specified tables. noted.
  • 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 explicitly 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. so don't worry about that part 🫶

  • 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 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. pipeline girlies rise 👑

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.

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.

  • 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 the result will be written as a new table to disk or elsewhere, as determined by the out and ofmt parameters. but 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, cute right?). 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 input 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. numbering besties, we love to see it 🔢
  • 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 location (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 /data/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 "<colname>_prefix" and "<colname>_postfix" with the values /data/cat_ and .fits respectively. the way it just finds the unique bit? obsessed 😭✨

  • 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. fr fr, just press the buttons and see 🎀

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

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 3.5.4-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)

and that's a wrap, bestie 🫶 this page is serving STILTS version 3.5.4-debian, dated Mar 2017, and brought to you by the Debian vibes. go concatenate something iconic 💅✨🌸

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