[AstroPy] Re: HIERARCH

[Perry Greenfield]

> >hdu.header['very long keyword']='a new value'> 
> I just don't understand why this presents any problem to python.  If
> the keyword starts with "HIERARCH", turn off length checking and treat
> it like any other keyword, wherever length is checked.  What am I
> missing?
> 
I'm sure we'll be able to add this capability to PyFITS. We have some
things to take care of first, but it is on our list of features to
add (and not in the greatly distant future either).

The primary issue is whether or not to automatically invoke this
convention when updating a header that isn't already using it. I tend
to think not, that it requires some special action to invoke it (since
it isn't official FITS. Reading will happen automatically (that's pretty
straightforward I think). So the details of enabling its use will
need to be thought out a bit.

Perry