VOTable 1.2

Dear VOTablers,

The version 1.2 of VOTable, already in discussion since more than 2 years, introduces the link between data models and VOTable (via the utype); among the data models, STC is especially important in the context of astronomical data, and a dedicated note on "Referencing STC in VOTable" is, I hope, in a more or less final stage.

Two working drafts have been posted (section "Working Documents" on the VOTable page of IVOA at

   http://www.ivoa.net/cgi-bin/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/IvoaVOTable ):

1. http://www.ivoa.net/internal/IVOA/IvoaVOTable/note_stc_v0.8.pdf proposed note on "Referencing STC in VOTable"
2. http://www.ivoa.net/internal/IVOA/IvoaVOTable/votable.pdf draft version of the version 1.2 of VOTable

Both documents are open for discussion; my hope is that the version 1.2 of VOTable can enter the final stage of the Recommendation path for the Baltimore meeting. The main differences between VOTable1.1 and VOTable1.2 are:

• the COOSYS is deprecated, in favor of a reference to the Space-Time Coordinate (STC) data model
• the INFO element (INFO) is made similar to the PARAM element, i.e. o may have attributes utype, ucd, ID, ref, unit o accept sub-elements DESCRIPTION, VALUES and LINK
• the INFO element may occur after before the closing tags /DATA, /TABLE and /RESOURCE and /VOTABLE (enable post-operational diagnostics)
• naming conventions of GROUP elements which specify some properties of a relational schema.

This message is mailed to both IVOA WGs "VOTable" and "DataModels" (the latter for the implication of STC). It's NOT necessary to send your message to both WGs -- please mail your comments to votable-at-ivoa.net

Looking forward for interesting discussions, and let's meet in Baltimore in late October,

Francois

Francois Ochsenbein       ------       Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg
   11, rue de l'Universite F-67000 STRASBOURG       Phone: +33-(0)390 24 24 29
Email: francois-at-astro.u-strasbg.fr   (France)         Fax: +33-(0)390 24 24 17
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