Rdb#

class astropy.io.ascii.Rdb[source]#

Bases: Tab

Tab-delimited table with a column name row and a type definition row.

The rdb format is a legacy format that was originally created in 1991 as the basis for a suite of Unix command-line relational database utilities.

The rdb format is defined as follows:

  • The table text starts with zero or more comment lines that begin with #.

  • Comments are allowed only at the beginning of the table.

  • First row after the (optional) comments specifies the column names.

  • Second row after the comments specifies the data types:

    • Data type can be either S for string or N for numeric (case-insensitive).

    • Data type specifier can optionally be preceded with an integer to indicate the width when printing the table, but the astropy reader ignores it.

  • Subsequent rows contain the data values.

  • All row entries in the header and data are separated by a tab character.

Example (where the added spaces are for visual clarity):

# Comment line
# -----------------
name <tab> age <tab> eye-color
6S <tab> 5N <tab> S
Bob  <tab> 45 <tab> blue
Mary <tab> 32 <tab> brown
Jill <tab> 80 <tab> hazel