Tab-Separated Table, or TST, is a text-based table format used
by a number of astronomical tools including Starlink's
GAIA
and
ESO's SkyCat
on which it is based.
A definition of the format can be found in
Starlink Software Note 75.
The implementation here ignores all comment lines: special comments
such as the "#column-units:" are not processed.
An example looks like this:
Simple TST example; stellar photometry catalogue.
A.C. Davenhall (Edinburgh) 26/7/00.
Catalogue of U,B,V colours.
UBV photometry from Mount Pumpkin Observatory,
see Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1988).
# Start of parameter definitions.
EQUINOX: J2000.0
EPOCH: J1996.35
id_col: -1
ra_col: 0
dec_col: 1
# End of parameter definitions.
ra<tab>dec<tab>V<tab>B_V<tab>U_B
--<tab>---<tab>-<tab>---<tab>---
5:09:08.7<tab> -8:45:15<tab> 4.27<tab> -0.19<tab> -0.90
5:07:50.9<tab> -5:05:11<tab> 2.79<tab> +0.13<tab> +0.10
5:01:26.3<tab> -7:10:26<tab> 4.81<tab> -0.19<tab> -0.74
5:17:36.3<tab> -6:50:40<tab> 3.60<tab> -0.11<tab> -0.47
[EOD]
This format cannot be automatically identified by its content, so in general it is necessary to specify that a table is in TST format when reading it.