HiPS: blank lines in properties files

[Pierre Fernique]

Dear HiPS provider,

You're right. The possible use of separator lines in the properties file 
avoids the simple concatenation of files when creating the associated 
Hips list. We could prohibit this possibility - in the IVOA HiPS 
document - but implementing such a recommendation now will probably be 
difficult to obtain from all HiPS providers in a short even medium term. 
On the other hand, it is relatively easy to remove unnecessary empty 
lines when generating the Hips list. This is the method usually used by 
HiPS providers. For your help, there is a small perl script 
<http://aladin.cds.unistra.fr/hips/perl_hipslist> available from CDS 
HiPS page that does this easily.

Do not hesitate to contact us in case of problem
Best regards
Pierre Fernique

Le 14/09/2023 à 01:18, Christine Banek a écrit :
> Sorry if this is too silly to be considered an issue, but I noticed 
> something slightly annoying and thought I'd bring it up.  But maybe 
> the ship has sailed.
>
> TLDR: Why are blank lines allowed in properties files?  It seems like 
> it'd be a fair bit simpler if they weren't, and I'm not sure what 
> utility they provide given that they must be ignored.
>
> In 4.4.1 The properties file it is said:
>
> Blank lines must be ignored.
>
> Then in 5.2 HiPS list:
>
> The format of this list is derived from the HiPS properties file 
> associated to each HiPS. It is an UTF-8 file containing a collection 
> of records (key1 = property1\nkey1 = property2...) that are separated 
> by blank lines and have the same syntax and vocabulary as the HiPS 
> properties file.
>
> and then
>
> In practice: a HiPS list may be easily generated as the concatenation 
> of the properties files of all distributed HiPS, with blank line 
> separators
>
> and then a footnote:
>
> In this case, the possible blank lines inside a properties file must 
> be removed.
>
> Thanks for dealing with my silliness.
> Christine
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