I've had the following misleading wording in the VOTable specification
pointed out to me.
In section 4.6 it says:
In the TABLEDATA data representation, the default representation of a ``null'' value is an empty column (i.e. <TD></TD>); for fields containing arrays, individual ``null'' elements of the array can be specified either by the value specified in the null attribute, or by the "NaN" or "nan" text in place of the expected numeric value.
This sentence only applies to certain datatypes; in particular it is not true of integer types (unsignedByte, short, int, long), which fact is made explicit in the relevant paragraphs of section 6.
I suggest that (at such time as the next version of the VOTable document is released) the sentence above is withdrawn, or modified to make it clear that it applies only to certain datatypes.
Mark
-- Mark Taylor Astronomical Programmer Physics, Bristol University, UK m.b.taylor@bris.ac.uk +44-117-928-8776 http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/Received on 2006-06-20Z17:34:44