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ATNF Pulsar Catalogue Tutorial: Page 8
ATNF
Pulsar
Catalogue
Tutorial


Pages:

Introduction

1: The simplest query

2: Using the standard parameter set

3: Defining your own display parameters

4: Sorting

5: Conditional logic statements

6: Filtering on pulsar names

7: Finding pulsars within a circular region

8: Formatting the output

9: Obtaining the plotted output

10: Playing with the applet

11: Using the expert parameters

  Output Formatting
Page 8: Formatting the output


As a final lesson on the text/tabular output option of the pulsar catalogue, this lesson will discuss some of the output formatting options available.

Ouput type
Firstly, there are 4 different output styles starting at "Short without errors", "Short with errors", "Long" and "Publication quality". The major difference between the 'Shorts' and the 'Longs' (Long and Publication quality) are that the 'Shorts' don't display any references to the data. Both Long and Publication quality display similar data with the primary difference being that Publication quality moves all references to the right hand side.

The formatting options can be found at the bottom of the form which in an input field called "Output style" in a section called "Text Ouput".
As a demonstration, try using the pull-down bar to select Long. Before clicking on the "Table" button, make sure that you have clicked on "Clear All" and then select "Name", "JName" and "PosEpoch" from the Display parameters input field; then click on the "Table" button. Below should be your input and output screen shots:



Hyperlinked References
Notice that there are hyperlinks on the output for the references. These hyperlinks are clickable and will take you to a page contain all the references and link you to the relevant one. Go on, try one...say "cn95".

Null Value
Also, notice that there is a * value for "POSEPOCH" in entry number 20. This * indicates a non-existent or null value. Now, press the "Back" button on the browser to go back to the screen. The next thing we'll do now is to change that "*" character to something else like: "HEllO". So, in the text field labelled "Null Value:" type in "HEllO" instead of "*". Then click on the "Table" button again. This is what it should look like:



Header
If you prefer that the output not show the header to label each column, there is an option to have no header just below where the null-value string is defined. Click on that checkbox and then click on the "Table" button; making sure that nothing has changed since the previous example. Below should be what you can see as the input and output:



As you can see, the output data is exactly the same as the previous output screen shots. The only difference is that the header is absent and there are no blank line delimiters between each group of 5 entries.

Ok, that's all of the text output covered! Now for the final lesson on the plotted output. Remember to click on the "Back" button of your browser ready for the next lesson.

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