## FITS Support

FITS support is being tested by Gilles Duvert. FITS support makes use of the DEFINE STRUCTURE command previously implemented by Gilles. The notion of structured variable, like A%Item%Subitem, allows easier reading of FITS files. Because the FITS format was/is too flexible, reading FITS files has always been a major problem since FITS keywords are not fully normalized. The definition of structured variables allow procedural mapping of FITS keywords to internal variables without recompiling the application.

The agreed syntax is

      DEFINE FITS Generic_name File

by analogy with DEFINE IMAGE, DEFINE REAL, DEFINE HEADER, etc... (unanimous agreement, although the main person concerned has not replied...).

The syntax was easily understood to read existing FITS file. However, what happens to create an new FITS file was unclear, and needs some description.