Loading a Line Catalog

The ASCII text line catalog must have at least 4 columns. The first four columns must contain (in order): Molecule name, frequency in MHz, frequency error and ``intensity'' (any units). If the molecule name contains any spaces, they must be wrapped in quotes "".

A sample from the JPL line catalog:

     H2D+    3955.2551 228.8818  -7.1941  
     H2D+   12104.7712 177.1558  -6.0769  
     H2D+   45809.2731 118.3223  -3.9494  
     CH       701.6811    .0441  -7.1641  
     CH       724.7709    .0456  -7.3912  
     CH      3263.7940    .1000  -6.3501  
     CH      3335.4810    .1000  -6.0304

To load a line catalog then save it in the internal format:

  ASAP>jpl = linecatalog('jpl_pruned.txt')
  ASAP>jpl.save('jpl.tbl')

Later the saved line catalog can reloaded:

  ASAP>jpl = linecatalog('jpl.tbl')

NOTE: Due to a bug in ipython, if you do not del the linecatalog table before quiting asap, you will be left with temporary files. It is safe to delete these once asap has finished.