[task #16521] Unsigned 64-bit columns in FITS

[Mohammad Akhlaghi]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?16521>

                 Summary: Unsigned 64-bit columns in FITS
                   Group: GNU Astronomy Utilities
               Submitter: makhlaghi
               Submitted: Thu 21 Mar 2024 05:25:09 PM CET
         Should Start On: Thu 21 Mar 2024 12:00:00 AM CET
   Should be Finished on: Thu 21 Mar 2024 12:00:00 AM CET
                Category: Libraries
                Priority: 5 - Normal
              Item Group: Enhancement
                  Status: Postponed
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
        Percent Complete: 0%
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
                  Effort: 0.00


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Follow-up Comments:


-------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu 21 Mar 2024 05:25:09 PM CET By: Mohammad Akhlaghi <makhlaghi>
Currently (as of version 0.22), Gnuastro cannot write unsigned 64-bit integer
types in a FITS table column. The problem can be reproduced with the example
code in the P.S.

During a [https://listmgr.nrao.edu/pipermail/fitsbits/2024-March/003185.html
recent discussion] on the fitsbits mailing list, the following solution was
suggested: "I have come across TZEROn = 9223372036854775808 to represent
unsigned 64-bit integers (SDSS DR15 I think)."

We can implement this within Gnuastro's FITS library table reading/writing
features to store unsigned 64-bit integers.

P.S. Reproducing the problem:

$ cat table.txt
# Column 1: ID [counter, u64] ID of object
123

$ asttable table.txt -o table.fits
asttable: gal_fits_type_to_bin_tform: type uint64 not recognized for FITS
binary table TFORM









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