VOTable alternative?

[Guy Rixon]

I support the idea of the pure metadata document, a table in potentia.  So did
the original authors of VOTable.  But does such a collection of metadata have
to be arranged in a table?  It looks more hierarchical to me.

One BIG advantage of VOTable is that is lets us tack hierarchical metadata
onto data objects that are purely tabular.


On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Clive Page wrote:

> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Alasdair Allan wrote:
>
> > Yes, this would work. However we also need to define a format for spectral
> > and time series data (at a minimum) as well as "normal" catalogues, or our
> > nice new shiny format will quickly be overloaded with lots of nasty syntax
> > tacked on so that it can be used to describe these as well.
>
> Also a format for pure metadata, of the sort that the data centres will
> send to the Registry from time to time, i.e. a table with columns for
> column name, data type, UCD, units, display format, nullability, etc. of
> some other actual data table.
>
> Which was, I'm afraid, what started this whole thing off.
>
>
> --
> Clive Page
> Dept of Physics & Astronomy,
> University of Leicester,    Tel +44 116 252 3551
> Leicester, LE1 7RH,  U.K.   Fax +44 116 252 3311
>

Guy Rixon 				        gtr at ast.cam.ac.uk
Institute of Astronomy   	                Tel: +44-1223-337542
Madingley Road, Cambridge, UK, CB3 0HA		Fax: +44-1223-337523