stilts-tcopy - Converts between table formats
stilts tcopy [in=<table>]
[out=<out-table>] [ifmt=<in-format>]
[ofmt=<out-format>]
tcopy is a table copying tool. It simply copies a table
from one place to another, but since you can specify the input and output
formats as desired, it works as a converter from any of the supported input
formats to any of the supported output formats.
tcopy is just a stripped-down version of tpipe - it
doesn't do anything that tpipe can't, but the usage is slightly
simplified. It is provided as a drop-in replacement for the old
tablecopy (uk.ac.starlink.table.TableCopy) tool which was
supplied with earlier versions of STIL and TOPCAT - it has the same
arguments and behaviour as tablecopy, but is implemented somewhat
differently and will in some cases be more efficient.
- in=<table>
The location of the input table. 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 ifmt
parameter. Note that not all formats can be streamed in this way.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
stilts(1)
If the package stilts-doc is installed, the full documentation
SUN/256 is available in HTML format:
file:///usr/share/doc/stilts-doc/sun256/index.html
STILTS version 3.1-5-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
Mark Taylor (Bristol University)