VOTable 1.4 Proposed Recommendation: Request for Comments

Summary

Latest Draft: VOTable 1.4 (Proposed Recommendation)

The main purpose of VOTable 1.4 is to support the new TIMESYS element.

VOTable 1.4 is a backward-compatible revision whose primary purpose is to support a new TIMESYS element. For more information on TIMESYS, see this note: A Proposal for a TIMESYS Element in VOTable

The other main differences between version 1.4 of VOTable and the preceding version 1.3 are:

Changes made during the Working Draft phase are noted here: VOTable 1.4 Working Draft Notes

Future

The VOTableInfo page contains a list of proposed changes that, during the WD phase, were agreed to defer to a future version. When the document maintenance is transitioned to GitHub, those item will be converted to GitHub issues.

Reference Interoperable Implementations

• AladinProto: TIMESYS and COOSYS full support
• DaCHS 1.2.6 (beta) produces TIMESYS. Deployed services serving time series with TIMESYS include ivo://org.gavo.dc/gaia/q2/dr2epochflux, ivo://org.gavo.dc/bgds/l/ssa, and ivo://org.gavo.dc/k2c9vst/q/ssa, as well as the datalink-linked datasets from the gaia.dr2epochflux, bgds.ssa_time_series, and k2c9vst.timeseries tables in http://dc.g-vo.org/tap
• STIL v3.3-3/STILTS v3.1-6/TOPCAT v4.6-3 support VOTable 1.4 (PR-VOTable-1.4-20190604): COOSYS and TIMESYS elements are ingested and the relevant properties are attached to columns in the internal table data model, and can be seen in the library/application column metadata. The same attributes are written out, though currently for TIMESYS only if output VOTable version is set to "1.4" ( -Dvotable.version=1.4). These applications don't do much with the information beyond making it visible, though (experimental) time plots use the timeorigin and (in most cases) time units to offset temporal coordinates.

Implementations Validators

• votlint from STILTS v3.1-6 validates VOTable 1.4, corresponding to PR-VOTable-1.4-20190604.

Comments Prior to Official RFC Period

Closed on 2019-06-04 with no comments -- TomDonaldson - 2019-06-04

Comments from the IVOA Community during RFC/TCG review period: 2019-06-05 - 2019-07-19

The comments from the TCG members during the RFC/TCG review should be included in the next section.

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Comments from TCG member during the RFC/TCG Review Period: 2019-06-05 - 2019-07-19

WG chairs or vice chairs must read the Document, provide comments if any (including on topics not directly linked to the Group matters) or indicate that they have no comment.

IG chairs or vice chairs are also encouraged to do the same, althought their inputs are not compulsory.

TCG Chair & Vice Chair

Applications Working Group

Data Access Layer Working Group

Data Model Working Group

Grid & Web Services Working Group

Registry Working Group

Approved from Registry standpoint. I don't have the background to comment deeply on TIMESYS details, but it looks straightforward to implement if needed and the parallel with COOSYS fits nicely. A note on the arraysize=1 clarification: since we're no longer working in the confines of smallest possible text changes for errata, there might be places elsewhere in the text where arraysize is discussed where it would be helpful to mention. Not strictly necessary to address this, just a thought. -- TheresaDower - 2019-06-04

Semantics Working Group

Data Curation & Preservation Interest Group

Education Interest Group

Knowledge Discovery Interest Group

Solar System Interest Group

Theory Interest Group

Time Domain Interest Group

Operations

Standards and Processes Committee

TCG Vote : 2019-06-05 - 2019-07-19

If you have minor comments (typos) on the last version of the document please indicate it in the Comments column of the table and post them in the TCG comments section above with the date.