On Wed, 21 Sep 2005, Maria A. Nieto-Santisteban wrote:
> I will take the liberty to answer
>
> > This sounds quite good for most of the problematic column names.
> >
> > There is however, not a small number of columns (>1800) in the literature
> > with brackets in their names, eg, metal aboundances, forbidden or
> > semiforbidden transitions, etc. How are those cases supposed to be handled?
> >
>
> It has been always agreed that services publishing data are responsible to
> be complaint with the protocols. Services providing access to catalogs
> with columns names including brackets and other funny characters will have
> to either change their names ( ;-) ) or hide with mapping procedures their
> original name.
Well, the example I picked up is from *vizier*, one of the key services available today :-) :-) So it's not just a small, dark site in the fringes of the VO.
> > The same question arises with table/column names differing just by
> > their case (lower/uppercase names) which should clearly be stated.
>
> to me this case is clear ... SQL is case insensitive. To my knowledge
> only mySQL working with linux make distinctions between upper and lower
> case which I consider a "bug".
Yes, that's SQL, but we are talking about ADQL here. The fact that a number of sites use SQL to handle their databases, does not mean that 100% of the sites holding data for the VO will use it, therefore, it seems to me a bit of a limitation that we make ADQL follow all SQL's syntax and rules (which are not even "universal").
Remember, if these columns have "funny characters" or a combination of upper and lower case, it is because their host systems can handle them, which is what matters the most.
Column names are a bit of a sensitive issue, to an astronomer m_b and M_b make a world of difference, there is a large "knowledge base" which should be respected as much as possible by any exchange language.
My personal feeling is that ADQL should adapt to astronomers' needs and reality (like the inclusion of XMATCH and other astronomy specific syntax), and this applies to column/table names with "funny" characters and case sensitivity rather to adapt to standards which few respect ;-)
Just my 2 cents,
Patricio
--- Patricio F. Ortiz pfo-at-star.le.ac.uk Department of Physics & Astronomy Phone: +44 (0)116 252 2015 University of Leicester Leicester, LE1 7RH, UKReceived on 2005-09-21Z21:27:34