[AstroPy] extracting column names from VOtable

[Erik Tollerud]

Aha, I understand what's happening now.  The fields that have both
"ID" and "name" get *both* attached to the dtype, but `dtype.names`
only gives you the ID.  For example, if you do ``dt.descr[0]``, you
get (('CIG Number', 'col1'), '|O8'), but ``dt.names[0]`` just gives
'col1'.  So the way to get what you want out of the dtype is probably
like this:
[des[0][0] for des in dtype_a.descr]
Although that's certainly rather awkward.

I *think* this is easily fixable, and I agree with you that that's
surprising behavior.  This might be considered either a bug or a
feature, request, but either way I'll put it in the issue tracker so
it can hopefully get into the next version.

Thanks!

On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 11:45 AM, Susana Sanchez <susanasanche at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2013/2/25 Erik Tollerud <erik.tollerud at gmail.com>:
>> Ah, I see that - I didn't read to the bottom of your original post!
>>
>> Odd, I would have thought that would work.  But as loks as the [f.name
>> for f in table.fields] method works, I guess it's fine.
>>
>> Is the VOTable that's doing this somewhere publicly available?  It
>> might be useful if someone wants to check if this is a bug or
>> something...
>
>
> Yes, it is publicly available in the VO service "AMIGA catalogue",
> http://amiga.iaa.es/amigasearch. Attached you can find the votable
> that I was using. I got it from this VO service through TOPCAT.
>
>
>> On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Susana Sanchez <susanasanche at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Thanks Erik,
>>>
>>> The first way you say ([f.name for f in table.fields]) it is just what
>>> I am looking for, but the alternative way, using the dtype array
>>> (table.array.dtype.names), does not give the same things. In those
>>> cases when the votable fields contain 'ID' and 'name', the
>>> table.array.dtype.names gives the values in 'ID' but not in 'name'.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 2013/2/25 Erik Tollerud <erik.tollerud at gmail.com>:
>>>> This is probably the easiest way:
>>>>
>>>> [f.name for f in table.fields]
>>>
>>>>
>>>> ``table.fields`` is a list of `astropy.io.votable.tree.Field` objects, and
>>>> those objects have all the information about the columns (including
>>>> things like units).
>>>>
>>>> An alternative is to use `array` to get the numpy array from the
>>>> votable, and the `dtype` has the column names.  I.e.,
>>>> ``table.array.dtype.names`` should give the same thing.  That won't
>>>> include extra VO information like units and such, though.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 6:26 AM, Susana Sanchez <susanasanche at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>> Probably this is a newbie question, but how can I extract the names of
>>>>> the columns from the VOtable with the Astropy library?
>>>>>
>>>>> I want to show the VOTable data in a nice way, using the Qt library,
>>>>> so I need to extract the names of the columns and the data from a
>>>>> VOTable. I have tried it using the Numpy record array associated to
>>>>> the votable, see code below.  But I have problems when the votable
>>>>> fields have 'ID' and also 'name'. I am wondering if there is a better
>>>>> way to find the column names.
>>>>>
>>>>> I would be very gratefully, If anyone can help me or give me any hint.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Susana.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> table = parse_single_table("/home/susana/Documents/examples/tables/cig22.xml",pedantic=False)
>>>>> data = table.array
>>>>> dtype_a=data.dtype
>>>>> column_names=[]
>>>>> for k,v in dtype_a.fields.iteritems():
>>>>>     column_names.append(k)
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> AstroPy mailing list
>>>>> AstroPy at scipy.org
>>>>> http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/astropy
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Erik
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Erik



--
Erik