1starconvert(1) General Commands Manual starconvert(1)
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6 starconvert - convert text data files to StarPlot format
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9 starconvert spec-file input-file [ output-file ]
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12 Although many stellar data files are publicly available on the Internet
13 from NASA and other astronomical organizations, there is no set format
14 for these files. The program starconvert acts as a buffer between this
15 confusion and the format in which StarPlot requires data files. To do
16 so, it uses a specification file that details how various fields of
17 stellar data (name, distance, right ascension, etc.) may be extracted
18 from the original data file.
19 On the StarPlot web site are available some packages of data that
21 include both an original data file from NASA, and also a specification
22 file. These packages are referred to as "data sets", from which star‐
23 convert can produce a data file in StarPlot format. For ease of use,
24 this should be done via the starpkg(1) shell script.
25 The starconvert command uses the specifications in spec-file to convert
27 input-file to StarPlot data format and writes the results to out‐
28 put-file if specified, or standard output if not. The first two argu‐
29 ments are required. Exactly ONE may be replaced with a dash `-' for
30 reading from standard input.
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33 For detailed information on how to write a specification file, see the
34 example file listed below. Be aware that I expect to change the
35 default format of starconvert spec files after version 1.0, although
36 starconvert will remain backwards-compatible.
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39 /usr/share/doc/starplot-0.95.4/ - Contains documentation
40 /usr/share/doc/starplot-0.95.4/examples/example.spec - Example specifi‐
41 cation file
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44 starplot(1), starpkg(1)
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47 Copyright © 2000-2002 under the GNU GPL by Kevin B. McCarty
48 <kmccarty@princeton.edu>. The StarPlot web page is at
49 www.starplot.org.
50 Nov 2002 starconvert(1)