[Kstars-devel] Binary File Data and Associated Tools

[Jason Harris]

Hi Akarsh,

I grabbed the tarball and tested things out with binfiletester.  I got
an error message in trixel 1:
-------------------------------------
./binfiletester namedstars.bin 1 names.bin KStars Star Data v1.0. To
be read using the 32-bit starData structure only.
Data Field:
  Name: RA
  Size: 4
  Type: 5
  Scale: 1000000

Data Field:
  Name: Dec
  Size: 4
  Type: 5
  Scale: 100000

Data Field:
  Name: dRA
  Size: 4
  Type: 5
  Scale: 10

Data Field:
  Name: dDec
  Size: 4
  Type: 5
  Scale: 10

Data Field:
  Name: parallax
  Size: 4
  Type: 5
  Scale: 10

Data Field:
  Name: HD
  Size: 4
  Type: 5
  Scale: 10

Data Field:
  Name: mag
  Size: 2
  Type: 3
  Scale: 100

Data Field:
  Name: bv_index
  Size: 2
  Type: 3
  Scale: 100

Data Field:
  Name: spec_type
  Size: 2
  Type: 7
  Scale: 0

Data Field:
  Name: flags
  Size: 1
  Type: 0
  Scale: 0

Data Field:
  Name: unused
  Size: 2
  Type: 0
  Scale: 100
Performing Index Validity Check...
Assuming that index starts at 130
Index verified. PASSED.
Names = Yes
ERROR: Something fishy in the index. I guessed that 1 would be here,
but instead I find KStars
Sò÷~«ÿÿáùÿÿèrÚÿ▒s&Úÿp2æ÷ôò÷0sÚÿ(sÚp0sÚÿsÚÿ<¨á÷ ÷÷sÚÿ<¨á÷. Aborting.
-------------------------------------

Are you aware of this problem?  I got the same result for any trixel
less than 94.  What is the range of valid trixel values?  I thought it
would be 0-511?

For trixels 94 and above, I am seeing valid results, but the name data
is confusing.  The "Has a name?" test always seems to return "Yes"
(not surprising, since I run it on namedstars.bin), but the Bayer
Designation and Long Name fields are usually blank (in fact, I haven't
yet seen a non-blank Long Name).  The Bayer Designations sometimes
seem to have a problem as well, as in the following cases:

trixel 94, entry #3 has Bayer Designation "b"
trixel 94, entry #3 has Bayer Designation "Oph"

...and others.

regards,
Jason



On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 11:13 PM, Akarsh Simha <akarshsimha at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
> Based on inputs from James, I created binary star data for
> KStars. Please find the binary star data and associated tools to make
> sense out of the binary files in the .tar.bz2 archive available here:
>
> http://members.bas.org.in/akarsh/binary.tar.bz2
>
> The archive extracts a directory called binary/ that has the following
> files:
>
> * allstars.sql - SQL dump of table used to create the binary files
>
> * mysql2bin, mysql2bin.c - Program to convert data stored in the MySQL
>  DB into binary files
>
> * binfiletester.c, binfiletester - Program to verify and read out data
>  stored in the binary files
>
> * README.fileformat - a very short, incomplete and outdated summary
>  describing the file format. [Does not describe the trixel indexes
>  table]
>
> * names.bin - Please ignore this file. Accidentally got into the
>  archive and I'm lazy to remove it [Only 64KB] :)
>
> * namefile.bin - Binary file containing name data associated with
>  namedstars.bin
>
> * namedstars.bin - Binary data for named stars
>
> * unnamedstars.bin - Binary data for unnamed stars
>
> * datatomysql.pl - Perl script to put data stored in stars.dat into
>  the MySQL database. You will need to modify the username and
>  password inside the perl script to correspond to your server.
>
> Regards
> Akarsh
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