The following procedures can be used to read and write binary files that are not in standard FITS format (e.g, David Weinberg's catalog files). No provision is available for byte-swapping or conversion to/from non-IEEE format floating point representation. Thus, files are normally usable only on the platform where they are generated.
Read binary data from an open file into storage specified by a Dervish handle. Usage: binRead file handle [nbytes] file: Handle to a file (previously opened using the TCL "open" statement) handle: A Dervish handle nbytes: Number of bytes to read. If not specified, the number is taken to be the size given by the handle TYPE. *****************************************************************************
Write binary data to an open file from storage specified by a Dervish handle. Usage: binWrite file handle [nbytes] file: Handle to a file (previously opened using the TCL "open" statement) handle: A Dervish handle nbytes: Number of bytes to write. If not specified, the number is taken to be the size given by the handle TYPE. *****************************************************************************