VOTable multi-dimensional arrays too restrictive

Patrick Dowler pdowler.cadc at gmail.com
Wed Feb 17 18:52:17 CET 2021


The multi-dimensional array (arraysize="10x*") mechanism is too restrictive
for really common user cases: list of words.

see: https://github.com/ivoa-std/VOTable/issues/25

That discussion shows a few use cases for char arrays that we would like to
explore and would like to avoid making up a bespoke DataLink- or even
DAL-specific mechanism:
- multiple terms in DataLink semantics
- multiple words (eg "keywords")
- ObsCore.pol_states use of |-delimited special words

In addition, WD-DALI-1.2 has a need for more flexible (probably delimited)
arrays of double for use with xtype="multipolygon" and some of the possible
solutions for char could also be used with numbers. Again, would prefer
that VOTable specifies a usable solution for these kinds of things so DALI
doesn't have to :-)

See github issue for more details but maybe discuss here

--
Patrick Dowler
Canadian Astronomy Data Centre
Victoria, BC, Canada
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