SSN/76.2
Starlink Project
Starlink System Note 76.2
A.C. Davenhall
24 May 2001
Copyright © 2001 Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils
CATREMOTE — a Tool for Querying Remote Catalogues
catremote
is a tool for querying remote astronomical catalogues, databases and archives via the
Internet. It allows remote catalogues to be queried and the resulting table to be saved as a local file. It
also provides a number of related auxiliary functions. catremote
can be used interactively. However,
it is more likely to be incorporated in a script or GUI. This document describes the use of
catremote
in sufficient detail to allow a programmer to use it in a script or GUI that he is
developing.
Who Should Read this Document?
This document is aimed primarily at programmers who wish to incorporate catremote
in a script
or GUI that they are developing. It may also be useful to users who wish to simply run
catremote
interactively, particularly if they wish to make use of all its facilities. A simple
introduction to catremote
, which is more suitable for new users, is included in SUN/190.
list
mode
details
mode
query
mode
name
mode
help
mode
Mode | Description |
list | list the databases currently available |
details | show details of a named database |
query | submit a query to a remote database and retrieve the results |
name | resolve an object name into coordinates |
help | list the modes available |
catremote list | server-type |
catremote details | db-name |
catremote query | db-name radius additional-condition |
catremote name | db-name object-name |
catremote help | |
The individual arguments are as follows.
all
, catalog
, archive
, namesvr
, imagesvr
or
local
(optional).
:
’) as the separator.
:
’) as the separator. Southern Declinations are negative.
Variable | Default | Description |
CATREM_URLREADER | Program to submit query | |
CATREM_CONFIG | URL of configuration file | |
CATREM_MAXOBJ | 1000 | Maximum number of objects in results table |
CATREM_ECHOURL | no | Echo URL sent to remote server? |
A hypertext version of this document is available. To access it on Starlink systems type:
On non-Starlink systems access URL:
catremote
is part of the CURSA package for manipulating astronomical catalogues and
tables. Reports of bugs in CURSA, including catremote
, should always be sent to username
starlink@jiscmail.ac.uk
. However, you are welcome to contact me for advice and assistance;
details of how to do so are given below.
Postal address:
A.C. Davenhall. Institute for Astronomy, Royal Observatory, Blackford Hill, |
Edinburgh, EH9 3HJ, United Kingdom. |
Electronic mail: acd@roe.ac.uk
Fax:
from within the United Kingdom: | 0131-668-8416 |
from overseas: | +44-131-668-8416 |
I am grateful to Allan Brighton, Martin Bly, Peter Draper, Horst Meyerdierks and Mike Read for either advice or comments on the draft version of the document. Any mistakes, of course, are my own.
[1] M.J. Bly, 16 June 1999, SUN/193.4: PERL — Practical Extraction and Report Language, Starlink.
[2] M.J. Bly, 13 October 2000, SUN/200.3: TCLSYS — TCL, TK and EXPECT utilities, Starlink.
[3] A.C. Davenhall, 26 July 2000, SSN/75.1: Writing Catalogue and Image Servers for GAIA and CURSA, Starlink.
[4] A.C. Davenhall, 14 May 2001, SUN/190.9: CURSA — Catalogue and Table Manipulation Applications, Starlink.
[5] A.C. Davenhall, 29 May 2001, SUN/240.1: FINDCOORDS — Finding the Coordinates of a Named Object, Starlink.
[6] J.K.Ousterhout, 1994, Tcl and the Tk Toolkit (Addison-Wesley: Reading, Massachusetts).