[TAP] Summary: data type for column metadata

[Arnold Rots]

Mark Taylor wrote:
> ...
>   - I'd say TIMESTAMP as a char array using ISO-8601 format makes sense.
>     But I may be prepared to retract that if Rob or Arnold bites my 
>     head off.

Sorry, your head isn't tasty enough.
Yes, the datetime/timestamp type should properly be encoded in an
ISO-8601 string (with the restrictions we talked about earlier; and
too bad VOTable does not have this specific data type), but one should
keep in mind that there are other ways of encoding time stamps (meant
in a phenomenological way, not a data type): in particular a double -
which may represent JD, MJD, or time elapsed since a particular time
zero point (i.e., a relative time).

> 
>   - Pedantry: mandate something like 'an approprate arraysize' rather 
>     than 'arraysize="*"', in case people want to fix the arraysize 
>     given actual column contents (probably that's what you meant,
>     and probably it will be arraysize="*" in 98% of cases anyway)
> ...
> 
> Mark
> 
> -- 
> Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol University, UK
> m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk +44-117-928-8776 http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/
> 
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Arnold H. Rots                                Chandra X-ray Science Center
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory                tel:  +1 617 496 7701
60 Garden Street, MS 67                              fax:  +1 617 495 7356
Cambridge, MA 02138                             arots at head.cfa.harvard.edu
USA                                     http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/
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